Jordan footballers take on Thailand hoping to reach Asian Games semis

AMMAN  — The Kingdom’s U-23 football team plays Thailand at 8:00am Jordan time on Sunday in the quarter-finals of the 17th Asian Games football competition currently underway in Incheon, South Korea.

Jordan beat Kyrgyzstan 2-0 in extra time on Thursday, and now hopes to get past the Thai team and move to the semis. Other quarter-final matches are: UAE vs North Korea, Saudi Arabia vs Iraq, South Korea vs Japan. Palestine, China, Hong Kong, Tajikistan, Vietnam, Indonesia and Uzbekistan were eliminated.

The Kingdom’s team is in a tight spot after two players were injured and a third was booked. Head coach Jamal Abu Abed said: “We have a tough organised opponent. We will aim to neutralise their offence. We have limited choices as far as the line-up and we cannot afford another injury,” Abu Abed said Thailand was an organised team and had skilful players.

Jordan moved to Round 2 after topping Group G following a 1-0 over the UAE and 2-0 over India. 

Despite a bumpy preparation period, Jordan’s impressive start has given them a much needed boost ahead of 2016 Olympic qualifiers set for March 2015.

On the other hand, the women’s football team is back home after being eliminated with rough defeats in Round 1 Group B matches tying Taiwan 2-2, losing to China 5-0 and suffering a crushing 12-0 defeat to Japan.

In the semis, South Korea plays North Korea while Japan takes on Vietnam.

Jordan was the only Arab team among 11 competing teams and had qualified to the Asian Cup finals for the first time after a three game winning streak beating Uzbekistan 4-0, Lebanon 5-0 and Kuwait 21-0 in Group A qualifiers.

The early elimination of the senior women’s team was another setback for the squad after a similar early exit earlier this year at their first Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Women’s 2014 Asian Cup where they lost to World Champs Japan 7-0, Australia and Vietnam 3-1 in Group A. The top two teams from each group and the best third-placed team qualified to the 2015 Women’s World Cup in Canada.

The Kingdom was the only Arab team to have ever qualified to the premier women’s football competition in the AFC region and was one of eight qualifying teams playing into two groups. 

Jordan is competing in 12 sports: football, basketball, taekwondo, karate, boxing, triathlon, cycling, judo, wrestling, squash, wushu and weightlifting.

The 17th Asian Games concludes on October 4.