Algeria and Austria draw 3-3 to reach World Cup knockouts

A wild 3-3 draw in Kansas City sent both Algeria and Austria into the World Cup round of 32, with Riyad Mahrez and Sasa Kalajdzic delivering the decisive late turns in a match that kept changing the bracket until the final minutes. The result closed Group J at the 2026 FIFA World Cup and also eliminated Iran, which fell out on the combination of results from the last round.

The scoreline captured the logic of the new 48-team tournament, where the top two finishers in each group advance along with the eight best third-placed sides. With 104 matches now in the competition and an additional knockout round, the margins in the group stage can be thin enough that a draw feels like a rescue for both benches instead of a concession. Algeria and Austria used their final game to show how quickly a team can move from pressure to qualification, then back again, without ever leaving the match behind.

Austria struck first through Marko Arnautovic in the 28th minute, but Algeria answered before halftime when Belghali scored in the 41st. Marcel Sabitzer restored Austria’s lead in the 55th minute, only for Mahrez to level two minutes later and then push Algeria ahead in stoppage time with a 90+3 finish that seemed to have settled the group. Kalajdzic responded almost immediately at 90+5, turning what looked like an Algerian escape into a shared celebration.

That late swing left Austria second in Group J and set up a round-of-32 meeting with Spain, while Algeria also moved on to the knockout phase. For both teams, the draw mattered less as a single point than as a demonstration of tournament management: staying alive when the match was open, answering under pressure, and trusting that one late goal could be enough in a format built to reward survival as much as dominance.