{"id":496943,"date":"2026-06-17T07:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T07:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/496943\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T07:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T07:28:08","slug":"marko-arnautovic-adds-gloss-to-scoreline-as-austria-see-off-world-cup-debutants-jordan-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/496943\/","title":{"rendered":"Marko Arnautovic adds gloss to scoreline as Austria see off World Cup debutants Jordan | World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Austria celebrated their long-awaited return to the World Cup<\/a> with a 3-1 win over determined \u2060debutants Jordan, with substitute Marko Arnautovic the difference in a gritty, end-to-end Group J match.<\/p>\n

On a brisk night in the San Francisco Bay Area, \u2060Austria went ahead with \u2060a 21st minute \u200bthunderbolt from Romano Schmid before Jordan fought back after the break through Ali Olwan\u2019s exquisite strike in off the post.<\/p>\n

The introduction of Arnautovic at half-time \u2060was decisive for Austria. The 37-year-old striker had a goal disallowed in the 69th minute, then pressured defender Yazan Al-Arab into an own goal seven minutes later before converting \u2060a penalty deep into stoppage time.<\/p>\n

Marko Arnautovic profile<\/a><\/p>\n

Austria midfielder Konrad Laimer said they knew coming into the match how tough \u200btheir opponents would be. \u201cWe knew that this was \u200cgoing to be a difficult \u200cmatch … there were situations where we did a good job, there were phases where we underperformed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s \u200cimportant is the mentality of the entire team \u2013 we never gave up, we kept going until the end and finally we came out on top.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jordan defended resolutely and were fierce on the break, with the pace of forwards Olwan and Musa al-Taamari a constant threat to Austria, who were playing at their first World Cup in 28 years.<\/p>\n

The match got off to a frenetic start, \u200cwith Jordan causing a scare two minutes in with a counter-attack that led to captain Ehsan Haddad blasting low into the side netting.<\/p>\n

Austria soon got into their stride, with \u200bMarcel Sabitzer the central figure in a succession of attacks, and they broke the deadlock on 21 minutes when Schmid found the top corner from outside the box.<\/p>\n

Jordan pressed hard and found the leveller five minutes after half-time when Olwan powered down the left before firing a sumptuous shot in off the far post.<\/p>\n

Austria thought they \u2060were back in front when Arnautovic prodded home a loose ball from close range, \u200bbut the goal was ruled \u200bout due to a handball by Stefan \u200bPosch following a VAR review.<\/p>\n

They got the decisive goal when Sabitzer\u2019s corner went in \u200boff Al Arab, then \u200cput the game beyond \u200bJordan through Arnautovic\u2019s penalty \u200b12 minutes into stoppage time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t deserve to lose in our first-ever World Cup appearance \u2013 a historic participation for us,\u201d Jordan\u2019s Olwan said. \u201cWe still have two matches ahead, and based on what I saw from our team today, we are capable of qualifying.\u201c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Austria celebrated their long-awaited return to the World Cup with a 3-1 win over determined \u2060debutants Jordan, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-496943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}