{"id":1387,"date":"2014-02-04T16:38:20","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T16:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/?p=1387"},"modified":"2014-02-04T17:12:40","modified_gmt":"2014-02-04T17:12:40","slug":"baleronaldo-set-to-play-play-against-atletico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/football\/baleronaldo-set-to-play-play-against-atletico\/","title":{"rendered":"Bale\/Ronaldo Set To Play Against Atletico"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti expects Cristiano Ronaldo to be available for the Copa del Rey semifinal on Wednesday despite the threat of a four-game ban.<\/p>\n<p>The Portugal forward\u00a0\u00a0was shown a straight red card in Sundays&#8217;s 1-1 Spanish league draw with Atletico Bilbao,\u00a0leaving his availability for the semifinal against Atletico Madrid up in the air.<\/p>\n<div>\u00a0The FIFA world footballer of the year\u00a0made a mocking gesture as he left the field, which could result in a longer suspension with any ban over two games extending to all competitions. A decision is expected by Wednesday.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But Ancelotti insists that he would not wait for the Spanish football governing body&#8217;s decision on Wednesday.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8221;I don&#8217;t think it was such bad gesture,&#8221; Ancelotti said. &#8221;The player was unhappy because the red was an exaggeration after he received the provocation he receives in every game. He&#8217;s provoked and fouled so much in every match.&#8221; Ancelotti said.<\/div>\n<p>The Italian coach says forward Gareth Bale will be available after being left out of the squad against Bilbao.<\/p>\n<p>&#8221;Bale has played very well when he has been available this season, but he&#8217;s also had problems,&#8221; Ancelotti said. &#8221;He&#8217;ll be much better next season since he&#8217;ll have a full preseason and have adapted to Spanish football.&#8221; He added.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti expects Cristiano Ronaldo to be available for the Copa del Rey semifinal on Wednesday despite the threat of a four-game ban. The Portugal forward\u00a0\u00a0was shown a straight red card in Sundays&#8217;s 1-1 Spanish league draw with Atletico Bilbao,\u00a0leaving his availability for the semifinal against Atletico Madrid up in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,81],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1387"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1390,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions\/1390"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}