The sixth day of World Cup competition was for the great scorers. The greatest of them, Argentine Lionel Messi, scored his team’s three goals in the 3-0 victory over Algeria, with a show of efficiency, and equaled German Miroslav Klose as the greatest scorer in the history of the World Cup, with 16 goals.
In the debut of the current champions, in the first game of Group J, at the Arrowhead stadium, in Kansas City, the left-handed Inter Miami striker actually scored four times — the first was disallowed — and was largely responsible for starting Argentina’s journey towards the fourth gold star on their chest on the right foot.
With the hat-trick, he now has a good chance of reaching the top of the World Cup top scorer list during Argentina’s campaign in the competition, in a dispute that promises to be fierce with Frenchman Kylian Mbappé.
Argentina returns to the field next Monday (22) to face Austria, at 2 pm (Brasília time), while Algeria duels with Jordan on the same day, at midnight.
France 3 x 1 Senegal
The French number 10, by the way, scored twice in the 3-1 victory over Senegal, in Group I, also climbing the World Cup top scorers table. After a first half in which France and Mbappé fell short of expectations, with Senegal much closer to opening the scoring, the striker became disenchanted in the second half.
Now, he has 14 goals in the history of the World Cup, one more than King Pelé. As Messi played later, the Frenchman had surpassed the Argentine, but Hermano opened the gap in the end.
In the second round of the first phase, the French team will face the Iraqis, on Monday (22), at 6 pm (Brasília time). Senegal returns to the field to face the Norwegians on the same day.
Iraq 1 x 4 Norway
Erling Haaland, 25, Manchester City’s prolific striker and top scorer in three of the last four Premier League editions, also made his mark twice in the 4-1 victory over Iraq in Boston.
And in his first match at a World Cup, he didn’t disappoint and scored the goals in his style — a combination of strength and speed.
The other goals came from Östigaard and Aymen Hussein (own goal), who also scored the Iraqi goal. He almost didn’t get to play in the World Cup because he was detained at Chicago airport and interrogated for seven hours before being released.
Norway has not played in the World Cup since 1998 and Iraq since 1986.
The Norwegian is alongside Havertz (Germany), Balogun (USA), Mbappé (France), Just (New Zealand) and Ayari (Sweden), all with two goals, and behind only Argentine Lionel Messi, with three.
Austria 3 x 1 Jordan
In the other game in Group J, in Argentina, the duel was not the most technical of the World Cup, but Austria took advantage of the chances it had and defeated Jordan 3-1 in the early hours of this Wednesday (17), at Levi’s Stadium, in Santa Clara, California.
The Austrian goals were scored by Schmid, Al-Arab (own goal) and Arnautovic. Ali Olwan cashed.
After a gap of 28 years without competing in the World Cup, the Austrian team has three points and is behind Argentina in the group standings, based on goal difference. Jordan, on its World Cup debut, managed at least one goal of honor.
The duel had a lot of desire from both teams, which was clear in the fast pace that the players presented on the field, but this was not synonymous with technical plays and well-worked tactical disputes. On the contrary.
What we saw, especially in the first half, were plays without effective results in the attack, many passing errors and defenses taking advantage in disputes, more due to the lack of quality of the attackers than the precision of the blocks.
