{"id":670,"date":"2025-07-07T19:19:52","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T11:19:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/?p=670"},"modified":"2025-07-07T19:19:54","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T11:19:54","slug":"dortmund-boss-kovac-praises-courtois-match-winning-stop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/07\/dortmund-boss-kovac-praises-courtois-match-winning-stop\/","title":{"rendered":"Dortmund boss Kovac praises Courtois match-winning stop"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" src=\"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/image-9.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-671\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/image-9.png 1000w, https:\/\/mktynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/image-9-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/mktynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/image-9-768x512.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Borussia Dortmund manager Niko Kovac has lauded Thibaut Courtois&#8217;s stunning save that denied his side extra time, calling the Real Madrid goalkeeper &#8220;one of the best in the world.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Borussia Dortmund coach Niko Kovac singled out Thibaut Courtois for praise on Saturday, highlighting the goalkeeper&#8217;s crucial save in the dying moments, which ensured Real Madrid held onto their 3-2 lead and progressed to the Club World Cup semi-finals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;First and foremost, I want to congratulate Real Madrid on advancing. It was a well-deserved victory (\u2026). The ending was absolutely frantic. Fine margins can decide these games, and very few goalkeepers (referring to Courtois) can protect the ball like that,&#8221; he stated in a press conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s one of the best goalkeepers globally. The way he blocked that shot\u2026 He was commanding, right in the thick of it. It&#8217;s a deserved win for Madrid. Had we scored that goal, it would have been slightly unfair, so to speak,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Leading 2-0 by the 20th minute thanks to goals from Gonzalo Garcia and Fran Garcia, Madrid controlled the match comfortably until injury time, when the game descended into a frenzied finale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maximilian Beier pulled one back in the 92nd minute, Kylian Mbappe then scored a stunning goal \u2013 his first of the tournament \u2013 to make it 3-1 in the 94th minute, before Serhou Guirassy converted a penalty in the 98th minute after Dean Huijsen was sent off, ruling him out of the semi-finals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Courtois, once again the hero for Los Blancos, had to produce a stunning save in the final play against Marcel Sabitzer to prevent extra time. Madrid will now face Paris Saint-Germain for a place in the final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Borussia Dortmund manager Niko Kovac has lauded Thibaut Courtois&#8217;s stunning save that denied his side extra time, calling<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":671,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":672,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions\/672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}