{"id":18339,"date":"2026-08-29T16:44:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T15:44:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/history-1986\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T16:44:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T15:44:39","slug":"history-1986","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/history-1986\/","title":{"rendered":"Six days in the capital with a team nobody rated"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A hotel with no hot water, a squad of nineteen, and the week that made a generation.<\/p>\n\n<h2 id=\"the-hotel\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">The hotel<\/h2>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They were booked into a hotel that had been chosen from a brochure. The brochure was out of date. For six days the squad trained at altitude, ate in shifts and washed in cold water, and by the third day had stopped complaining, which the manager later said was the moment he knew.<\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"682\" height=\"1024\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/fans-682x1024.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18184\" srcset=\"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/fans-682x1024.webp 682w, https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/fans-200x300.webp 200w, https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/fans-768x1153.webp 768w, https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/fans-1023x1536.webp 1023w, https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/09\/fans.webp 1066w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 682px) 100vw, 682px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The square outside the hotel on the night of the semi-final.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n<h2 id=\"the-week\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">The week<\/h2>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Three matches, two of them against sides that had beaten them the year before. Nobody rated them. They did not lose.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A hotel with no hot water, a squad of nineteen, and the week that made a generation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18182,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_spx_person_id":0,"_spx_fixture_id":0,"_spx_pick_id":0,"_spx_eg_facts_label":"","_spx_eg_facts":"","_spx_figure_caption":"","_spx_news_feat":"","_spx_video_url":"","_spx_duration":"","_spx_views":"","_spx_presenter":"","_spx_media_state":"","_spx_start_at":"","_spx_media_status":"","_spx_episode":"","_spx_subject":"","_spx_subject_role":"","_spx_story_year":"1986","_spx_duration_seconds":0,"_spx_view_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"spx_comp":[],"spx_fixture_ref":[],"spx_series":[],"spx_format":[310],"spx_video_kind":[],"spx_show":[],"spx_sport":[],"spx_flag":[],"class_list":["post-18339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","spx_format-long-read"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18339"},{"taxonomy":"spx_comp","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_comp?post=18339"},{"taxonomy":"spx_fixture_ref","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_fixture_ref?post=18339"},{"taxonomy":"spx_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_series?post=18339"},{"taxonomy":"spx_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_format?post=18339"},{"taxonomy":"spx_video_kind","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_video_kind?post=18339"},{"taxonomy":"spx_show","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_show?post=18339"},{"taxonomy":"spx_sport","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_sport?post=18339"},{"taxonomy":"spx_flag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_flag?post=18339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}