ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) \u2014 Lionel Messi, the top scorer in World Cup history, will not start when defending tournament champion and Group J winner Argentina plays Jordan on Saturday night in its last match before the knockout stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni said Friday, two days after Messi\u2019s 39th birthday, that the team\u2019s captain will begin the match on the bench, but also indicated through an interpreter that he \u201cwill come in a little bit later.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scaloni didn\u2019t say when Messi might substitute in to the game, or what his lineup would be against first-time World Cup participant Jordan, which lost its first two matches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Messi scored all five goals for Argentina in the first two group matches, and now has 18 goals overall in his six World Cups. He had his first-ever hat trick in the tournament in a 3-0 win over Algeria to tie the career scoring record at 16 goals that had been held by Miroslav Klose of Germany. He broke that mark with the goals in a 2-0 win over Austria on Monday at the home of the NFL\u2019s Dallas Cowboys \u2014 where the group finale will be played.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Klose played in 24 World Cup matches for Germany, which wrapped up his fourth tournament by winning the 2014 final 1-0 in extra time over Messi and Argentina. Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 matched Klose at 16 with two goals in France\u2019s 3-0 win over Iraq later Monday. Mbapp\u00e9, who has four goals in the tournament, didn\u2019t score in a 4-1 win over Norway on Friday in his final group match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Considered by many to be the greatest player of all time, Messi has made 201 international appearances for Argentina, including a FIFA-record 28 World Cup matches. He has scored in six consecutive World Cup games, joining France striker Just Fontaine and Brazil great Jairzinho as only players to do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Messi had been dealing with a minor hamstring injury with Inter Miami of Major League Soccer that slowed him in the lead-up to the World Cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While there have been no indications of any issues since, Argentina has a lot of games left if it is going to get to another\u00a0World Cup\u00a0final. The knockout round for La Albiceleste begins next Friday in South Florida, and in this expanded 48-team tournament that would be the first of five matches in 17 days if they make it to the final on July 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even with Argentina trying to go undefeated in group play for the fifth time, and first since 2014, Messi isn\u2019t the only starter expected to get a break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Goalkeeper Emiliano Mart\u00ednez could be the only regular starter in a lineup that could feature several new faces. Nicol\u00e1s Paz, who made his World Cup debut subbing in for Messi late in the opener against Algeria, is now expected to start in his place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe hope is that the team will play the same way. That\u2019s what we\u2019re going to try to do,\u201d Scaloni said. \u201cJordan is a good opponent, and we\u2019re not taking anything for granted. We\u2019ll try to tweak some aspects of the last match, but with the same intention of controlling the ball and dominating the opponent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) \u2014 Lionel Messi, the top scorer in World Cup history, will not start when defending tournament champion and Group J winner Argentina plays Jordan on Saturday night in its last match before the knockout stage. Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni said Friday, two days after Messi\u2019s 39th birthday, that the team\u2019s captain will […]<\/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-418604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12903"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418604","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=418604"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":418605,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418604\/revisions\/418605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}