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Jordan hosts Paraguay in friendly match

By Aline Bannayan - Sep 09,2019 - Last updated at Sep 09,2019

AMMAN — Jordan hosts Paraguay at Amman International Stadium on Tuesday in a friendly, which comes amid their training agenda for the qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and 2023 Asian Cup in China,

The match against Paraguay, who reached the World Cup eight times, is the most high-profile friendly set in the upcoming training agenda. The guest team had its best World Cup finish in 2010 when it was knocked out in the quarter-finals. They are currently 39th in FIFA Rankings. Paraguay was twice Copa America champs in 1953 and 1979 and reached the final in 2011, but lost to Uruguay.

On the other hand, the Kingdom is now 99th in the latest FIFA Rankings which came after two friendly matches losing to Slovakia 5-1 before beating Indonesia 4-1. Once among the Asia top 10, Jordan is now 16th in the continent but still lags behind relatively uncompetitive Asian teams compared to their best FIFA Ranking of 37th in 2004 when they reached the quarters of the Asian Cup.

The national squad returned home after winning its first qualifier against Taiwan 2-1 as they kicked off the long journey of the World Cup and Asian Cup Group B qualifiers alongside Australia, Kuwait and Nepal.

The Kingdom last played a friendly during a training camp in Malaysia where it beat the host 1-0. Jordan will resume qualifiers and host Nepal and Kuwait on October 10 and 15 before playing Australia on November 14 and Taiwan on November 19. The qualifiers will then halt until
March 31.

During summer Jordan played at the 9th West Asian Championship which was won by Bahrain. It was the fourth time for Jordan in the final, finishing runner-up three times but never winning the title. Jordan's best finish at WAFF Championship was runner-up in 2002, 2008 and 2014. Iran won the title for the fourth time in 2008. Iraq won the title once in 2002, Kuwait in 2010, Syria in 2012 and Qatar in 2014 and Bahrain in 2019. 

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