DALLAS, June 27 (Reuters) – Rampant Argentina \u2060made nine changes to their starting team yet still powered to a comfortable \u20603-1 victory over Jordan on Saturday, showcasing the remarkable squad depth that could \u200cprove crucial in their World Cup title defence.<\/p>\n
Only goalkeeper Emi Martinez and forward Lautaro Martinez kept their places as already qualified Argentina took top spot in the pool while at the same time resting key players \u200bahead of their round of 32 clash with Cape Verde \u2060in Miami on Friday.<\/p>\n
Already-eliminated Jordan did \u2060not provide the stiffest of tests, but Scaloni will be pleased with minutes in the \u2060legs \u200cfor several of his players who had yet to feature in the tournament, and rest and recovery for others at the end of a long season. <\/p>\n
As \u2060Argentina move into the knockout phase, Scaloni will know the \u200bimportance of keeping his \u200centire squad match-fit and focussed, lest injuries or suspensions require changes.<\/p>\n
“What we were looking \u2060for was the \u200bboys who had not played to have minutes, because the truth is they deserve it,” Scaloni said after the game. <\/p>\n
“I’m happy because we gave minutes to everyone and that’s very important for \u2060us.”<\/p>\n
He was able to leave the mercurial Lionel Messi \u200bon the bench for an hour, but the little maestro was always likely to enter the fray, or there would have been bitter disappointment for fans who had paid handsomely for \u2060tickets, many just to see him.<\/p>\n
Messi did not disappoint as he rifled in a free kick that earned him another piece of history as the first man to score in seven consecutive World Cup matches.<\/p>\n
It would be a stretch to say the game was in \u200bthe balance at 2-1, but it was a reminder that \u2060when a little magic is needed to put a game to bed, there are none better \u200bin the world.<\/p>\n
And so Argentina move on in fine \u200cfettle, with a full haul of nine points \u200bin their group, a free-scoring Messi and having used every outfield player available to them in the squad.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Nick Said in HoustonEditing by Toby Davis)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS, June 27 (Reuters) – Rampant Argentina \u2060made nine changes to their starting team yet still powered to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":766073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,13201,596,85,21418],"class_list":["post-766072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}