Jordan kicks off U-20 Asian Cup matches

AMMAN — Jordan plays Saudi Arabia on Thursday in Group B matches of the AFC U-20 Asian Cup which kicks off in Shenzhen, China.

The Kingdom’s matches include North Korea on February 16 and Iraq on February 19.  Group A includes hosts China, Australia, Kyrgyzstan and Qatar; Group C includes titleholders Uzbekistan, Iran, Indonesia and Yemen while Group D includes, Japan, South Korea, Syria and Thailand. The top two teams from each group will move to the quarterfinals. The top four teams  will advance from Asia to the 2025 FIFA U-20 World Cup.

It will be Jordan’s  9^th time at the  U20 Asian Cup  finals with their best finish fourth place in 2006 when they qualified to the U20 World Cup in 2007.

After a series of friendlies in Amman, the squad played a friendly tourney which included India, Indonesia and Syria ahead of the finals. The team includes a host of young stars who were recently also recalled to the senior team’s Doha training camp, headed by Ibrahim Sabra, who has been instrumental in Wihdat’s local land regional agenda in the AFC Champions League Two.

The U-20 Asian Cup,  previously known as the AFC Youth Championship and AFC U-19 Championship, is a biennial competition organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC),  and is a qualifying tournament to the U-20 World Cup.  South Korea is the record winning team with 12 titles. Among Arab teams Iraq won five times, Saudi three times, while Qatar, Syria and the UAE once each.

Forty five Asian teams contested the AFC qualifiers in 10 groups, with the group winners and five best second-placed teams advancing to the finals.  Jordan qualified as one of five best second placed teams after they beat Singapore 2-0 and Hong Kong 7-0 and lost 3-2 to Qatar.