{"id":7026,"date":"2026-06-23T14:54:54","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T09:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/?p=7026"},"modified":"2026-06-23T14:54:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T09:09:54","slug":"mbappe-messi-shine-as-world-cup-2026-drama-intensifies-giants-battle-for-knockout-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/?p=7026","title":{"rendered":"Mbapp\u00e9, Messi Shine as World Cup 2026 Drama Intensifies; Giants Battle for Knockout Glory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">FIFA World Cup 2026 Latest News \u2013 June 23 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p><b><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">Mbapp\u00e9 leads France into knockout race<\/span><\/b><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 scored twice as France national football team defeated Iraq 3\u20130, despite a long weather delay. Mbapp\u00e9 reached 16 World Cup goals, closing in on the all-time record race with Lionel Messi. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">Messi continues making history<\/span><\/b><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">Lionel Messi has been one of the biggest stories of the tournament, adding more goals and strengthening Argentina\u2019s title defense hopes. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">Big matches ahead today:<\/span><\/b><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">\u2022 Portugal vs Uzbekistan<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">\u2022 England vs Ghana<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">\u2022 Panama vs Croatia<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">\u2022 Colombia vs DR Congo<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">Tournament watch:<\/span><\/b><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 18px;\">The expanded 48-team World Cup is producing major surprises, with teams like USA, Germany, Argentina, France and others fighting for knockout qualification.\u00a0<\/span><br \/>\n<!--\/data\/user\/0\/com.samsung.android.app.notes\/files\/clipdata\/clipdata_bodytext_260623_050723_203.sdocx--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FIFA World Cup 2026 Latest News \u2013 June 23 Mbapp\u00e9 leads France into knockout race Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 scored twice as France national football team defeated Iraq 3\u20130, despite a long weather delay. Mbapp\u00e9 reached 16 World Cup goals, closing in on the all-time record race with Lionel Messi. Messi continues making history Lionel Messi has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-highlights"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/PEC36IGJQM3GDCBFSI3EMVQL7E.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7028,"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7026\/revisions\/7028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesasian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}