The pattern was set inside five minutes and barely shifted: Algeria with the ball, Jordan content to let them have it. Petkovic’s 4-3-3 monopolised possession but kept meeting the same wall, Sellami‘s men happy to surrender territory and break through Musa Al-Tamari and Ali Olwan when the moment came.
Algeria’s trouble was never creation but composure in the final third: Mahrez’s two clear sights of goal, an early Amine Gouiri snapshot, a smattering of half-chances, all came to nothing.
Jordan, meanwhile, carried genuine venom on the quick counter and struck from one of their few sustained spells of pressure.
The second-half question is simple: do Algeria, now needing to chase the game, crank up the tempo and prise Jordan open — or does that very urgency gift the newcomers the room they want to break into? Should Ait-Nouri fail to continue, the reshuffle could tilt things further still.
