Jordan regroups for football qualifiers

AMMAN — The Jordan men’s football team is readying to play two important qualifiers this week amid concerns about the team’s last-minute regrouping.

Jordan will next play Kyrgyzstan on September 3, before facing Bangladesh on September 8 and Australia on October 8 in Leg 1 of Group B qualifiers for the 2018 World Cup in Russia doubling as part of the qualification for 2019 Asian Cup as well.

The “Nashama” — as Jordan’s squad is dubbed — is led by Belgian Paul Put, who was recently contracted by the Jordan Football Association as head coach. However, the coach’s arrival and team regrouping was delayed for the past two months and pros playing abroad as well as veterans on the line-up only regrouped this week. 

The appointment of Abdullah Abu Zameh to replace Ahmad Abdul Qader as assistant even drew wide debate as under Abdul Qader, the Kingdom beat Tajikistan 3-1 in its opening Group B qualifier in the transitional period following the departure of Ray Wilkins under whom the team failed to advance past the quarters of the 2015 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup. 

Put said during his absence “due to health reasons” he and his assistant had decided the current line-up would initially remain the same in the next two matches, but there might be changes to include some U-23 players on the team after the third match.

In the latest FIFA World Rankings, Australia is the highest ranked team in Group B at 61, followed by Jordan (92), Kyrgyzstan (156) Tajikistan (158) and Bangladesh (170).

In its last friendly, Jordan held the U-23 team 0-0 and beat it 3-0 last week. Jordan beat Trinidad & Tobago 3-0 and played four friendlies holding Kuwait 2-2, Lebanon 0-0, while losing 2-1 to Saudi Arabia and 1-0 to Syria. 

The Jordanian squad had the most memorable World Cup qualifying journey in 2013 when it lost a possible chance to play at the World Cup for the first time. Jordan advanced to play then World’s 6th ranked Uruguay in an intercontinental qualifying tie for a place in the 2014 World Cup where it lost the home game 5-0 and held the former World Cup champs 0-0 in the away match. 

Jordan had never reached that far in World Cup qualifying since taking part in the qualifiers in 1985. Round 3 had been the furthest Jordan reached in the past seven times in the qualifiers.

In the Asian Cup, Jordan reached the championship three times since first taking part in qualifiers in 1972: the pinnacle was at the 13th Asian Cup, when it lost to Japan in the quarter-finals and jumped to the best ever FIFA ranking  of 37th in August 2004. In 2011, Jordan again reached the quarter-finals.