Defending champions Argentina will walk out without their talismanic captain Lionel Messi in the starting lineup when they face tournament debutants Jordan in their final Group J encounter on Sunday.With Argentina having already wrapped up the top spot in Group J, head coach Lionel Scaloni has opted to wrap his crown jewel in cotton wool. Speaking on Saturday, just two days after Messi celebrated his 39th birthday, Scaloni confirmed that the newly crowned all-time World Cup top scorer will start on the bench, though he drops a heavy hint that the maestro will feature eventually.“Messi will begin the game on the bench, but he will come in a little bit later,” Scaloni told reporters, keeping his tactical cards close to his chest without revealing the exact timing of the substitution or his starting XI.The decision comes as a calculated piece of load management. Messi has been single-handedly carrying the Argentine attack in North America, scoring all five of the team’s goals so far. He slammed a vintage hat-trick against Algeria to equal the men’s all-time scoring record before breaking both Miroslav Klose’s and Marta’s absolute tournament tallies with a clinical brace against Austria on Monday.Furthermore, Messi’s build-up to the quadrennial showpiece was plagued by a nagging hamstring injury during his domestic season with Inter Miami. While there have been no visible fitness concerns since the tournament kicked off, the Argentine camp is fully aware of the physical marathon that lies ahead.Argentina’s pursuit of a consecutive global crown enters its business end next Friday in South Florida. If La Albiceleste are to reach the grand finale on July 20, they face a gruelling, unforgiving schedule of five matches packed into a mere 17 days.Given the high-intensity nature of modern knockout football, saving Messi’s legs against a heavily mismatched Jordan squad makes perfect tactical sense. While fans inside the stadium will be desperate for a glimpse of the genius, Scaloni’s focus is firmly trained on ensuring his master strategist is operating at 100 per cent when the win-or-go-home frontier arrives.
