For close to 70 minutes it looked like Jordan might spring an almighty upset against Algeria.
For the second time in its first World Cup, the nation of 11 million punched well above its weight.
After causing Austria plenty of trouble in a 3-1 defeat in its competition debut, Jordan went closer second time around.
Coming up against a nation competing in its fifth World Cup and drawing upon a population of 48 million population and an extensive, soccer-rich diaspora, Jordan more than held its own after taking a 36-minute lead.
The Algeria squad is drawn from some of the top teams in Europe’s strongest leagues and features a UEFA Champions League winner and former African Player of the Year in Riyad Mahrez.
Jordan’s squad is made up of players from its domestic league and clubs in Iraq, Qatar, Morocco, Malaysia, Romania and South Korea. Attacker Musa Al-Taamari who plays for Rennes in France’s top division is the team’s star.
Goals from Nadhir Benbouali, in the 69th minute, and Amine Gouiri in the 82nd gave Algeria a 2-1 victory in Santa Clara.
For large parts of this keenly contested game it looked like they might finish with nothing. Instead it is Jordan who are out of the World Cup after their second successive defeat. They conclude their tournament when they face reigning champions Argentina and Lionel Messi in Dallas.
“I think our lack of experience allowed them to score from two corner kicks when we were waiting to make our own substitutions with the cooling break,” said Jordan coach Jamal Sellami.
“Generally speaking, we had a great match, and we should be proud of our performance in our very first experience in the World Cup, we were better than the first match.”
Algeria began brightly with Rayan Ait-Nouri of Manchester City and Bayer Leverkusen’s Ibrahim Maza driving them forward. But as the first half progressed Jordan grew more ambitious and began to threaten in transition.
They took the lead from one counter through Nizar Al-Rashdan, who plays in Qatar, and started the second half confidently. In the end Algeria’s quality and squad depth — the contribution of some substitutes helped turn the game — proved decisive.
“What mattered for us was to win this match, to stay in the hunt, to make it through to the knockout stage, and ultimately to have our fate in our own hands,” said Algeria coach Vladimir Petkovic.
Algeria face Austria on Saturday in Kansas to decide second place in Group J behind Argentina.
Despite giving up two poorly defended goals from Algerian set pieces, Jordan can take pride from this game and the loss to Austria.
Despite these results this remains a relative golden age for Jordanian football. In 2023 they reached the final of the Asian Cup for the first time. And have seen their FIFA ranking improve roughly 20 spots to 63 earlier this year.
It is easy to forget that just ten years ago bombastic Englishman Harry Redknapp had a short-lived spell as Jordan coach.
The expanded 48 team World Cup has benefitted smaller countries like Jordan. But it has also shown that the gap in talent between the historically stronger nations and the rest is perhaps not as big as some feared when FIFA announced the enlargement of its flagship tournament.
Jordan, Cape Verde, Curacao, and others, have asked serious questions over the last few weeks. Rather than a raft of one-sided defeats, the surprise has been the quality of the football these teams have produced and the ability to hurt supposedly superior opponents.
For Jordan, large credit should go to coach Sellami. The Moroccan’s team is clearly well-drilled with a strong understanding of when to break, pressure and press. Against both Algeria and Austria Jordan remained tactically disciplined when faced with technically superior opponents.
Speaking after the Austria game Sellami said that Jordan had studied their opponent and found ways to hurt them. Plenty of coaches have failed to do that when confronting teams coached by Ralf Rangnick and Jordan certainly posed the Austrian tactical savant some questions.
“Jordan did a fantastic job throughout the match. We expected a difficult opponent, we knew that they were going to be anything but easy, but today they displayed a very brave kind of football. They exceeded my expectations,” Rangnick said after facing Sellami’s side. “Jordan did an amazing job and made it very difficult for us. At the end of the day, we deserved to win but it was very difficult.”
Rangnick is a fan of the expanded World Cup and commended the bravery of nations coming up against higher ranked teams and looking for ways to win rather than just avoid defeat.
“It’s not that easy to win during this tournament – we have 48 teams and there is not going to be one easy opponent,” he said. “The teams now have really caught up in the last 15 years or so, so there are really no easy teams.”
