SANTA CLARA, California, June 16 : Austria celebrated their long-awaited return to the World Cup with a 3-1 win over determined debutants Jordan on Tuesday, with substitute Marko Arnautovic the difference in a gritty, end-to-end Group J match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On a brisk night in the San Francisco Bay Area, Austria went ahead with a 21st minute thunderbolt from Romano Schmid before Jordan fought back after the break through Ali Olwan’s exquisite strike in off the post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The introduction of Arnautovic at halftime was decisive for Austria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 37-year-old striker had a goal disallowed in the 69th minute, then pressured defender Yazan Al Arab into an own goal seven minutes later before converting a penalty deep into stoppage time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Austria midfielder Konrad Laimer said they knew coming into the match how tough their opponents would be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We knew that this was going to be a difficult match … there were situations where we did a good job, there were phases where we underperformed,” he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“What’s important is the mentality of the entire team – we never gave up, we kept going until the end and finally we came out on top.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
28-YEAR WORLD CUP ABSENCE<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jordan defended resolutely and were fierce on the break, with the pace of forwards Olwan and Mousa Al-Tamari a constant threat to Austria, who were playing at their first World Cup in 28 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The match got off to a frenetic start, with Jordan causing a scare two minutes in with a counter-attack that led to captain Ehsan Haddad blasting low into the side netting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Austria soon got into their stride, with Marcel Sabitzer the central figure in a succession of attacks, and they broke the deadlock on 21 minutes when Schmid found the top corner from outside the box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jordan pressed hard and found the leveller five minutes after halftime when Olwan powered down the left before firing a sumptuous shot in off the far post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Austria thought they were back in front when Arnautovic prodded home a loose ball from close range, but the goal was ruled out due to a handball by Stefan Posch following a VAR review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They got the decisive goal when Sabitzer’s corner went in off Al Arab, then put the game beyond Jordan through Arnautovic’s penalty 12 minutes into stoppage time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We didn’t deserve to lose in our first-ever World Cup appearance – a historic participation for us,” Jordan’s Olwan said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We still have two matches ahead, and based on what I saw from our team today, we are capable of qualifying.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SANTA CLARA, California, June 16 : Austria celebrated their long-awaited return to the World Cup with a 3-1 win over determined debutants Jordan on Tuesday, with substitute Marko Arnautovic the difference in a gritty, end-to-end Group J match. On a brisk night in the San Francisco Bay Area, Austria went ahead with a 21st minute […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12903],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-417300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12903"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":417301,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417300\/revisions\/417301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}