{"id":67608,"date":"2025-06-09T04:59:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T04:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=67608"},"modified":"2025-06-09T04:59:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T04:59:12","slug":"portugal-edges-spain-claims-second-nations-league-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/06\/09\/portugal-edges-spain-claims-second-nations-league-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Portugal Edges Spain, Claims Second Nations League Title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Oluwamayowa Fakande<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Portugal have claimed their second UEFA Nations League trophy after a tense penalty shootout victory over Spain.<\/p>\n<p>Cristiano Ronaldo drew Portugal level at 2-2 in the 61st minute, but neither side could find a winner before the end of regulation time.<\/p>\n<p>The Portuguese captain was substituted before extra time and broke into tears of joy on the sidelines after Ruben Neves sealed the win with the decisive penalty.<\/p>\n<p>Spain, winners of the 2023 edition, opened the scoring in the 21st minute through Martin Zubimendi after Portugal failed to clear a loose ball in the box. Portugal responded swiftly, with Nuno Mendes firing a low drive past Unai Simon just five minutes later.<\/p>\n<p>Mikel Oyarzabal restored Spain\u2019s lead before halftime, but Ronaldo came to the rescue once more, hooking in Mendes\u2019 deflected cross from close range to bring the game back level.<\/p>\n<p>In the shootout, Goncalo Ramos, Vitinha, Bruno Fernandes and Nuno Mendes all converted for Portugal. Alvaro Morata\u2019s weak effort was saved by Diogo Costa, setting up Neves to calmly slot in the winner.<\/p>\n<p>With the victory, Portugal have become the first nation to win the Nations League twice, denying Spain the same opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Oluwamayowa Fakande Portugal have claimed their second UEFA Nations League trophy after a tense penalty shootout victory over Spain. Cristiano Ronaldo drew Portugal level at 2-2 in the 61st minute, but neither side could find a winner before the end of regulation time. The Portuguese captain was substituted before extra time and broke into [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":67609,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-67608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67610,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67608\/revisions\/67610"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}