{"id":55040,"date":"2026-06-21T14:15:54","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T21:15:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=55040"},"modified":"2026-06-21T14:15:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T21:15:54","slug":"world-cup-2026-iran-holds-belgium-to-draw-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2026\/06\/21\/world-cup-2026-iran-holds-belgium-to-draw-video\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Iran holds Belgium to draw [VIDEO]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nytimes.com &#8211; INGLEWOOD, <strong>Belgium stumbled to a 0-0 draw with Iran at SoFi Stadium on Sunday in a game that featured both a red card and perhaps the best save of the 2026 World Cup thus far.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Belgium, the most talented team in Group G on paper, couldn\u2019t unlock a resistant Iranian defense, and then had to survive the last 25 minutes of the match with 10 men after defender Nathan Ngoy was sent off for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>The atmosphere at SoFi Stadium near Los Angeles was festive, much less political than the scene surrounding Iran\u2019s World Cup opener. And thousands of Iranian American fans cheered as their team earned an unexpected point.<\/p>\n<p>The result leaves a gaping hole atop Group G. Either Egypt or New Zealand could fill it with a win on Sunday night. The Belgians will now need a victory over New Zealand on Friday, plus some help, to win the group \u2014 as many expected them to do before the tournament began.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Belgium vs. IR Iran Full Highlights | FIFA World Cup 2026\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jZtC6FnJum4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nytimes.com &#8211; INGLEWOOD, Belgium stumbled to a 0-0 draw with Iran at SoFi Stadium on&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":55041,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,86,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-world-cup"],"views":140,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55040"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55042,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55040\/revisions\/55042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}