{"id":166864,"date":"2015-11-14T13:38:21","date_gmt":"2015-11-14T13:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=166864"},"modified":"2015-11-14T13:38:21","modified_gmt":"2015-11-14T13:38:21","slug":"belgium-come-from-behind-to-beat-italy-in-friendly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=166864","title":{"rendered":"Belgium come from behind to beat Italy in friendly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"introduction\">Kevin de Bruyne and Jan Vertonghen both scored as Belgium came from behind in Brussels to end a run of 12 successive defeats against Italy.<\/p>\n<p>Antonio Candreva put Italy ahead in the third minute but Tottenham&#8217;s Vertonghen headed an equaliser and Manchester City winger De Bruyne lobbed in the second.<\/p>\n<p>Michy Batshuayi claimed a third to seal Belgium&#8217;s fifth win over Italy.<\/p>\n<p>There was a minute&#8217;s applause in memory of the 39 fans who died before the 1985 Liverpool-Juventus European Cup final.<\/p>\n<p>Belgium went into the game as the number-one ranked team in the world and enhanced their billing as one of the favourites for Euro 2016 next summer with an impressive performance.<\/p>\n<div class=\"story-feature image full-width\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/c.files.bbci.co.uk\/13F40\/production\/_86682718_players_heysel_getty.jpg\" alt=\"A banner at the game between Belgium and italy remembering those who lost their lives in the Heysel Stadium disaster\" width=\"624\" height=\"260\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Players from both sides remembered the 39 supporters &#8211; most of whom were Italian &#8211; who lost their lives when a wall at the Heysel Stadium collapsed before the 1985 European Cup final<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The home side fell behind after three minutes when Liverpool keeper Simon Mignolet saved well from Southampton striker Graziano Pelle but was beaten by Candreva&#8217;s follow-up.<\/p>\n<p>But Vertonghen headed the equaliser from a De Bryune corner 10 minutes later, his first goal of the season.<\/p>\n<p>Belgium were missing injured Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany but went ahead in the 74th minute when City team-mate De Bruyne lifted the ball over Italy keeper Gianluigi Buffon after he had saved from Batshuayi.<\/p>\n<p>Substitute Batshuayi then completed the scoring from close range seven minutes from the end.<\/p>\n<p>Belgium coach Marc Wilmots said: &#8220;The spirit of the group is perfect. Collectively we kept our cool, came back, and won.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"story-feature image full-width\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/c.files.bbci.co.uk\/F120\/production\/_86682716_heysel_banner_getty.jpg\" alt=\"A banner at the game between Belgium and italy remembering those who lost their lives in the Heysel Stadium disaster\" width=\"624\" height=\"260\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Supporters also paid tribute to the supporters who died at the Heysel Stadium<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"story-feature image full-width\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/c.files.bbci.co.uk\/0AA8\/production\/_86682720_scoreboard_heysel_getty.jpg\" alt=\"The scoreboard at the game between Belgium and italy remembering those who lost their lives in the Heysel Stadium disaster\" width=\"624\" height=\"260\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Names of the supporters who died ahead of the 1985 European Cup final were displayed on the scoreboard at the ground now known as the King Baudouin Stadium<\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">&#8211;<\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Source: BBC Sport<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kevin de Bruyne and Jan Vertonghen both scored as Belgium came from behind in Brussels to end a run of 12 successive defeats against Italy. Antonio Candreva put Italy ahead in the third minute but Tottenham&#8217;s Vertonghen headed an equaliser and Manchester City winger De Bruyne lobbed in the second. Michy Batshuayi claimed a third [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":166866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29,3],"class_list":["post-166864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=166864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/166866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=166864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=166864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=166864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}