{"id":33761,"date":"2026-05-05T13:39:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T11:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=33761"},"modified":"2026-05-05T13:39:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T11:39:26","slug":"iraq-to-face-andorra-spain-in-friendlies-ahead-of-world-cup-return","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/iraq-to-face-andorra-spain-in-friendlies-ahead-of-world-cup-return\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraq to face Andorra, Spain in friendlies ahead of World Cup return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Iraq will step \u200bup preparations for their \u200cfirst World Cup appearance in 40 years with \u200bfriendly matches against Andorra \u200band former champions Spain, \u2060the Iraqi Football \u200bAssociation (IFA) said on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>The national \u200bteam will face Andorra on May 29 before facing \u200bSpain six days \u200blater in La Coruna ahead of \u200cthe \u2060World Cup which will be held across the United States, Canada \u200band \u200bMexico \u2060from June 11 to July 19.<\/p>\n<p>Iraq, \u200bwhose only previous \u200bWorld \u2060Cup appearance was at the 1986 tournament in \u2060Mexico, \u200bwill face \u200bFrance, Senegal and Norway in Group \u200bI.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21315,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-33761","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The national \u200bteam will face Andorra on May 29 before facing \u200bSpain six days \u200blater.","published_date":"","news_description":"The national \u200bteam will face Andorra on May 29 before facing \u200bSpain six days \u200blater.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33770,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33761\/revisions\/33770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=33761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}