{"id":731635,"date":"2026-06-21T09:30:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T09:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/731635\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T09:30:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T09:30:29","slug":"dutch-king-and-queen-attend-world-cup-match-in-kansas-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/731635\/","title":{"rendered":"Dutch king and queen attend World Cup match in Kansas City"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) \u2014 Kansas City Royals captain Salvador Perez, along with teammates Starling Marte and Carter Jensen, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DZ0-zNkiTnd\/?img_index=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DZ0-zNkiTnd\/?img_index=1\">attended Saturday evening\u2019s World Cup match<\/a> at Arrowhead Stadium.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">So did some other royals!<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands began Saturday by cheering <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/netherlands-sweden-world-cup-score-585eacdfa787d31aaecd8cead4ca8a2a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the Dutch past Sweden<\/a> in Houston.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The monarchs ended the day by watching <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kctv5.com\/search\/?query=Curacao\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.kctv5.com\/search\/?query=Curacao\">Curacao<\/a> make some history against Ecuador in Kansas City.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"Netherlands King Willem-Alexander, left, Queen M\u00e1xima and Princess Ariane, right, watch the...\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/XXRMP3PK5FHG5H5ZFDHZM45XD4.jpg\" width=\"980\" height=\"653\" \/>Netherlands King Willem-Alexander, left, Queen M\u00e1xima and Princess Ariane, right, watch the World Cup Group E soccer match between Ecuador y Curacao in Kansas City, Mo., Saturday, June 20, 2026. (AP Photo\/Ed Zurga)(Ed Zurga | AP Photo\/Ed Zurga)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The small island nation of Curacao is a constituent country within the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kctv5.com\/search\/?query=Netherlands\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.kctv5.com\/search\/?query=Netherlands\">Kingdom of the Netherlands<\/a>, and that makes King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima the heads of state. So, after a quick flight north Saturday, the royal couple dutifully swapped out their bright orange scarves of Het Oranje Legioen they wore to their earlier match with bright blue ones for The Blue Wave.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Curacao, the smallest World Cup team in population and size, made its tournament debut last Sunday in a 7-1 loss to Germany. But it bounced back from that defeat<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kctv5.com\/2026\/06\/21\/curacao-keeper-eloy-room-makes-15-saves-sends-island-nation-0-0-draw-with-ecuador\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.kctv5.com\/2026\/06\/21\/curacao-keeper-eloy-room-makes-15-saves-sends-island-nation-0-0-draw-with-ecuador\/\"> to earn a 0-0 draw with La Tri <\/a>and earn its first-ever point in the tournament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cIt is an extra-special World Cup because we have both the Netherlands and Curacao,\u201d Willem-Alexander told RTL-TV. \u201cSo we have twice as many teams to cheer for. A great opportunity to cheer on both the Blues and the Oranges. All in all, it will be a special World Cup for me with two teams, and I naturally hope they go extremely far.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"A general view during the second half of the World Cup Group E soccer match between Ecuador...\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/3QXVIUZJRJFJVMZTKQHPUDKWEU.jpg\" width=\"980\" height=\"653\" \/>A general view during the second half of the World Cup Group E soccer match between Ecuador and Curacao in Kansas City, Mo., Saturday, June 20, 2026. (AP Photo\/Reed Hoffmann)(Reed Hoffmann | AP Photo\/Reed Hoffmann)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The Netherlands moved one step closer to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kctv5.com\/news\/world-cup-to-kc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.kctv5.com\/news\/world-cup-to-kc\/\">World Cup<\/a> knockout round after a 5-1 win over Sweden.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Brian Brobbey and Cody Gakpo scored two goals apiece to help coach Ronald Koeman\u2019s team bounce back from <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/world-cup-netherlands-japan-score-d5cb428f3a5f1199345894d44a6bdded\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a disappointing draw<\/a> in its opener and move atop Group F. The Netherlands concludes group play against Tunisia on Thursday in Kansas City.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Curacao is still alive, too, after Eloy Room made 15 saves \u2014 one off the World Cup record \u2014 to earn a draw with Ecuador. It concludes Group E play on Thursday against the Ivory Coast in Philadelphia at the same time Ecuador is playing Germany in New York.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">It is quite rare for sitting monarchs to come through the area. Queen Ann of Romania attended the dedication of the Liberty Memorial, which is where Kansas City is holding its World Cup FanFest, in the 1920s, while King Gustav XVI of Sweden made a stop in the small Kansas town of Lindsborg when he was passing through the Midwest in the 1970s.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) \u2014 Kansas City Royals captain Salvador Perez, along with teammates Starling Marte and Carter&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":731636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[11853,5,5965,13137,70773,47515,18954,139,936,2123,55,2596,2595,91196,46320,4,27513,11815,91197,91198,252,373,1428,18947,38306],"class_list":["post-731635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kansas-city-royals","tag-arrowhead","tag-baseball","tag-breaking-news","tag-country","tag-curacao","tag-dutch","tag-ecuador","tag-houston","tag-kansas","tag-kansas-city","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-kansascity","tag-kansascityroyals","tag-king-willem-alexander","tag-kingdom","tag-mlb","tag-netherlands","tag-newsbreak-app","tag-queen-maxima","tag-royal-family","tag-royals","tag-salvador-perez","tag-stadium","tag-sweden","tag-world-cup"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116787401624931566","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=731635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/731636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}