{"id":497572,"date":"2025-10-14T01:36:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T01:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/497572\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T01:36:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T01:36:13","slug":"wales-v-belgium-match-stopped-as-huge-rat-invades-pitch-in-hilarious-scenes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/497572\/","title":{"rendered":"Wales v Belgium match stopped as HUGE rat invades pitch in hilarious scenes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wales’ Euro 2025 qualifying play-off semi-final match against Belgium was briefly halted after a giant rat invaded the pitch<\/p>\n

Glen Williams<\/strong> and William Morgan<\/strong> Reporter<\/p>\n

01:12, 14 Oct 2025Updated 01:13, 14 Oct 2025<\/p>\n

\"The Group J FIFA World Cup qualifier between Wales and Belgium was paused while players shooed a rat off the pitch in Cardiff(Image: Dan Mullan, Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The Wales v Belgium World Cup<\/a> qualifying match was briefly paused on Monday night when a rat decided to join the action at Cardiff City<\/a> Stadium.<\/p>\n

Craig Bellamy’s team were 2-1 down in the 66th minute when the ref blew his whistle after a Belgian player received a bang to his head.<\/p>\n

But before the game could kick off again, everyone had to wait for a pesky rodent to scurry off the pitch. Wales<\/a> sub Brennan Johnson found himself playing rat-catcher, shooing the creature away as it scampered towards a camera operator on the touchline.<\/p>\n

“Seen it all. Brennan Johnson escorts a rat off the pitch,” quipped one spectator. “Joe Rodent,” joked another, punning on the name of Welsh and Leeds United defender Joe Rodon, who’d netted the first goal of the night.<\/p>\n

\"BrennanBeleaguered Welsh fans found some joy in the match when the rat paused play(Image: Dan Mullan, Getty Images)<\/p>\n

“The rat was the best part of this game imo (in my opinion),” another fan posted on social media, just before Wales went two goals down after a Kevin De Bruyne penalty.<\/p>\n

“There’s no way I’ve just watched Brennan Johnson chase a rat off the pitch,” an astonished user added.<\/p>\n

Rodon had put Wales ahead early on, but the visitors struck back with two goals before half-time, leaving the Welsh side with a steep hill to climb.<\/p>\n

\"Belgium’s early turnaround turned into a significant lead(Image: James Gill – Danehouse, Getty Images)<\/p>\n

De Bruyne slotted home his second penalty of the night with just 15 minutes left, making the comeback even tougher for Bellamy’s boys, reports Wales Online<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the one-sided game of cat and mouse eventually came to a seemingly inevitable conclusion, with Belgium taking the game 4-2.<\/p>\n

The loss significantly chews away at Wales’ hopes of automatic qualification for next year and leaves them relying on the results of other teams to help them out of the hole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wales’ Euro 2025 qualifying play-off semi-final match against Belgium was briefly halted after a giant rat invaded the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,14591,4884,16,15,1764,52825,1514],"class_list":{"0":"post-497572","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-cardiff-city-fc","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-wales","14":"tag-wales-football-team","15":"tag-world-cup"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115369960311812930","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}