Why Lionel Messi won't start vs. Jordan in final World Cup group game

ARLINGTON, TX — Lionel Messi will begin Argentina‘s match against Jordan on the bench, Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni confirmed in his news conference the day before his team’s final 2026 World Cup group game.

“Leo will start on the bench,” Scaloni said, joking he only answered the question because it was asked by 91-year-old journalist Enrique Macaya Márquez, who is covering his 18th edition of the World Cup.

After opening the tournament with a pair of wins, Argentina knows that regardless of the result against Jordan on Saturday, June 27, it will win the group and move into the knockout stage to play the second-place team in Group H.

Messi has scored all five goals for Argentina in this tournament, hitting a hat trick against Algeria in a 3-0 win and scoring a double to push the team past Austria, 2-0. But the Inter Miami star, who celebrated his 39th birthday this week, also entered the tournament nursing a hamstring issue and will likely come into the match in the second half as he gathers strength for what Argentina hopes is a return to the final after lifting the World Cup in 2022.

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That means an opportunity for players yet to see significant minutes in the tournament, with 21-year-old Nico Paz or veteran Giovani Lo Celso potentially stepping into Messi’s position.

Scaloni said, however, he won’t put players in simply because they are yet to play in this tournament but because they have worked hard on the training ground.

“I think these guys who, if they play tomorrow, they deserve to play,” Scaloni said. “They make up part of the group, part of the process and it’s a big achievement for everything they’ve done. It’s because of them. The guys who don’t play are the first to train the next day.

“If I can as manager, I’ll try give them minutes, but not because they haven’t been playing but because they deserve it. They’re great players, too, and a manager’s desire is that the team play the same. Even if it’s different players, different names that it plays in the same way. That’s what we’re going to try to do.”

After the group finale against a Jordan team that said Friday it isn’t afraid of what Messi and Argentina can offer, the Albiceleste will move into a round of 32 contest against either Cabo Verde, Uruguay or Spain. That match will take place July 1 in Miami.