Lionel Messi came off the bench to score his sixth goal of the tournament as Argentina warmed up for their World Cup knockout tie with Cape Verde by beating Jordan 3-1 on Saturday.
Messi tops the scoring charts in North America as the tournament heads into the last 32.
Cape Verde’s players will be wondering how they can stop the Argentina captain when the debutants ranked 67 face the champions in Miami on July 3.
With qualification already in the bag, Messi started on the bench but came on after an hour in Texas to huge cheers to get his side’s third with a free-kick.
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Argentina finished emphatically top of Group J with maximum points after also beating Algeria 3-0 and defeating Austria 2-0, all those goals coming from Messi.
The holders and their 39-year-old talisman look formidable, albeit in one of the weaker groups.
“We played a very good group stage. We knew we had very tough opponents, that it wasn’t going to be easy,” said Giovani Lo Celso, who scored Argentina’s first of the evening.
