Nine Changes and Messi Still Found a Way Through
Lionel Scaloni made nine changes to a team that had already won its group. That single decision tells you more about this match than the final score does.
Argentina beat Jordan 3-1 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on June 28, 2026, in their final Group J match at the World Cup. Already through and already top of the group, Argentina rotated heavily and still controlled the game, while Jordan exit the tournament without a win in their World Cup debut.
For anyone who just wants the headline facts. Argentina beat Jordan 3-1. Giovani Lo Celso opened the scoring in the 19th minute with a free kick, Lautaro Martinez doubled the lead from the penalty spot in the 31st, Mousa Al-Tamari pulled one back for Jordan in the 55th, and Lionel Messi sealed it from another free kick in the 80th. Argentina finish the group stage with a perfect record and now face Cape Verde in the round of 32.
Jordan set up in a 3-4-2-1, leaving two attacking midfielders to operate behind a lone striker, against Argentina’s 4-4-2. On paper that looked like it might crowd Argentina’s midfield two. In practice, Jordan’s back three line dropped so deep against Argentina’s movement that the attacking midfielders had no platform to press from, and Argentina simply played through the gap that opened up between Jordan’s middle and back lines.
Here is the thing about how directly that gap got punished.
Both opening goals came from set pieces rather than open play, which matters more than it sounds. Lo Celso’s free kick arrived after Mohannad Abu Taha fouled him on the edge of the box, and Martinez’s penalty came from a VAR review after a foul on Julian Alvarez following a rebound. Argentina finished with 1.11 expected goals from set plays alone against Jordan’s 0.04, a gap that says everything about which team was disciplined in dangerous areas and which one was not.
Jordan’s fouls were not bad luck. They committed 13 fouls to Argentina’s seven, several in exactly the kind of central, edge-of-box zones where free kicks turn into goals against a team carrying Messi.
One thing Jordan did well deserves real credit, and it came after halftime. Coach Hussein Ammouta’s changes at the break, bringing on Mousa Al-Tamari and Mahmoud Al-Mardi, immediately lifted Jordan’s threat. Their second-half expected goals jumped to 0.64 from just 0.10 in the first, and the goal itself was a clean move, with Al-Mardi and Ehsan Haddad combining before Al-Tamari finished from a low cross. For twenty minutes, Jordan looked like a team that belonged on this stage.
Scaloni’s biggest call was patience, not panic. He brought Messi on in the 60th minute, not because Argentina were struggling, but because Jordan had just scored and the game needed settling. Messi’s first contribution was a near-miss free kick that served as nothing more than a range-finder. Fifteen minutes later he used that exact same range to put the game away, curling a low strike around a two-man wall that left goalkeeper Yazeed Abulaila with no chance.
Make no mistake, this was not a vintage Argentina performance, and it did not need to be. They controlled 73 percent of possession and still managed only 2.13 expected goals against a side ranked nowhere near them, a tournament debutant with no win in three games. Strip away the result and the truth is that Jordan’s resistance in open play, just 0.72 expected goals allowed before set pieces are stripped out, says their failure was about discipline in the box, not a lack of organization everywhere else.
For Ammouta, the fix heading into Jordan’s next tournament cycle is specific. Stop conceding fouls in the 25 to 30 yard central channel against teams with elite free-kick takers. Jordan committed fouls in exactly that zone twice in the buildup to Argentina’s first two goals, and against a team without a player of Messi’s quality, neither one results in a goal.
Argentina leave with a perfect record nobody will remember by the time the knockouts start mattering. Jordan leave with a debut nobody there will forget.