Attentive Scaloni: Austria defeated Jordan 3-1 in their debut

During the early hours in Argentina, hours after the great victory of the National Team against Algeria by 3-0, the second match of Matchday 1 of the Group J was played. In an entertaining match, Austria, the next rival of the Albiceleste in the group stage, defeated Jordan 2-1 in a hard-fought game.

In the initial minutes, the Europeans would control possession, although they would not be precise in attack, something that Jordan, with its few chances, would manage to achieve. A demonstration of this was at 16, when Musa Al-Taamari shot from distance and, due to a deflection off David Alaba, almost complicated goalkeeper Alexander Schlager, who managed to send it to the corner.

After receiving these kinds of warnings, the players coached by Ralf Rangnick would dispel their doubts at 20, when, after a pass from Xaver Schlager, Romano Schmid would shoot from outside the area to score a stunner that left the Jordanian goalkeeper Yazeed Abu laila stranded.

Immediately after suffering the Austrian goal, at 22 Jordan would come very close to equalizing: Odeh Fakhouri would take a short corner with Mohannad Abu Taha, who would send a cross to Ali Olwan, who headed his floated attempt onto the crossbar. Later, at 34, Olwan himself would unleash a powerful shot that was neutralized by Schlager, leaving the ball in the rebound for Al-Taamari, but he could not convert because Philipp Lienhart would get in the way.

In the second half, the Asians would almost immediately find the equalizer. At 49, Alowan would recover in midfield and drive down the left wing until reaching the area, where he would unleash a right-footed shot to the far post that was unstoppable for the European team's goalkeeper.

With the momentum of their first goal in a World Cup, Jordan would start to dominate the actions, putting their rival in trouble on several occasions, forcing them to make some changes to regain their initial prominence.

Among those changes would be Marko Arnautovic, who at 66, after a series of rebounds in the area following a corner from Marcel Sabitzer, would push it in to make it 2-1. However, Mauritanian referee Dahane Beida would disallow his goal for a previous handball by his teammate Stefan Posch.

Although he would regret not being able to celebrate his goal, Austria would quickly have revenge shortly after. At 76, again from a corner, Sabitzer would cross for Arnautovic, however, the ball would first bounce off the back of azan Al-Arab, leaving Abu laila with no response, allowing the Europeans to take the lead once again on the scoreboard.

Towards the end of the match, the players of Rangnick would have the opportunity to seal the game. At 91, Arnautovic would find himself one-on-one with the Asian team's goalkeeper, but he would save with a good rush. Although it seemed that everything would end with that last highlighted play, five minutes later the Austrian number 7 would receive in the area and shoot on goal, but his ball would suffer a deflection off the arm of Saleem Obaid, which, after a VAR review, would result in a penalty that the same player from Red Star Belgrade would convert into a goal.

After this victory, Austria will try to strike against the Argentine National Team next Monday, June 22 at the AT&T Stadium in Dallas. Meanwhile, Jordan will seek to earn their first three points against Algeria on Tuesday, June 23 at the Levi's Stadium in San Francisco.