{"id":1184379,"date":"2026-06-17T12:13:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T18:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/?p=1184379"},"modified":"2026-06-17T12:13:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T18:13:06","slug":"hoover-native-chris-richards-made-world-cup-history-in-team-usa-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/hoover-native-chris-richards-made-world-cup-history-in-team-usa-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Hoover Native Chris Richards Made World Cup History in Team USA Opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With the World Cup coming\u00a0to the\u00a0United States this summer, American fans all across the country get the chance to take in the most popular sport outside of this country and folks from around the globe are coming to watch.<\/p>\n<p>Most excitingly though, Team USA is as equipped to make a run as it has been, perhaps in the history of the World Cup, and the team proved why in their opening game this past Friday night.<\/p>\n<p>Dominating a very capable Paraguay squad by a score of 4-1, the American effort was led in part by\u00a0Hoover native,\u00a0Chris Richards.<\/p>\n<p>Richards \u2014 who plays during the season for English Premier League squad Crystal Palace \u2014 started on the defensive line and had an absolutely brilliant performance. In fact, by completing all 83 of his passing attempts, he accomplished a feat not seen since 1966 with the most passes with 100% accuracy by any player in the World Cup.<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-x\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Chris Richards 83\/83 completed passes are the most passes with 100% accuracy by any player in a FIFA World Cup match since 1966 \ud83d\udc4f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/tDYxIRwpEA\">pic.twitter.com\/tDYxIRwpEA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 ESPN Insights (@ESPNInsights) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ESPNInsights\/status\/2065641377350680964?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 13, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Richards entered the tournament with an injury and many unsure of whether he would be able to play, but he answered that question and much more with a gutsy performance on Friday night.<\/p>\n<p>To state the obvious, soccer is not the most popular sport in the country and even less so in the South. However, any southerner who was not already invested in the success of Team USA has someone to root for in Richards, and as the tournament goes on, he will continue to not only make the country proud, but his home state as well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>With the World Cup coming\u00a0to the\u00a0United States this summer, American fans all across the country get the chance to take in the most popular sport <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/hoover-native-chris-richards-made-world-cup-history-in-team-usa-opener\/\" title=\"Hoover Native Chris Richards Made World Cup History in Team USA Opener\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":4874,"featured_media":1184380,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1184379","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-featured-news"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/JMG25101410_USA_v_AUS.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4874"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1184379"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1184381,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184379\/revisions\/1184381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1184380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1184379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1184379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1184379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}