U-23 football squad plays North Korea

AMMAN  — The Kingdom’s U-23 football team plays North Korea on Monday in its second friendly as part of its training camp in Ajman, the UAE, ahead of the Olympic qualifiers starting March 25.

Over the weekend, the team held the Koreans 2-2 in the first match as Jordan scored early in the 4th minute and then in the 16th minute to lead 2-0. However, a red card shown to Jordan’s Quweider, which reduced the team to 10 players, allowed the Koreans to make up by scoring two goals in the 51st and 56th minutes to level the match. 

Jordan is slated to play Lebanon on March 12 and en route to the qualifiers in Pakistan the team was expected to take on  Bahrain in a friendly.  The Jordan Football Association (JFA) announced the cancellation of the friendly international against Bahrain that was scheduled to be played in Amman on March 25. The Bahraini side requested the cancellation and now the JFA will coordinate with the national team’s technical and managerial staff to schedule an alternative match, according to the JFA website.

While the friendlies are vital for Jordan, head coach Jamal Abu Abed is in a tough position trying to finalise his line-up ahead of the qualifiers with at least nine players missing the line-up as Wihdat readies to play their AFC Cup match against Oman’s Nahda and four other players are on Jazira’s line-up readying to play Ira’s Shurta on Tuesday. 

The qualifiers will see Jordan playing in Group B alongside hosts Pakistan on March 25 before facing Turkmenistan on March 27, Kyrgyzstan on March 29 and Kuwait on March 31. The team is aiming to qualify for the 2016 AFC U-23 Championship which will take place in Qatar in January 2016. 

A total of 43 teams are in the qualification tournament playing in 10 groups of five or four teams.  The top team from each of the groups in addition to the top second-placed team from groups that have five teams will move to the 2016 AFC U-23 Championship from which the top three advance to the 2016 Summer Olympics Football tournament in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 

The team’s agenda has been hampered by other competitions including the Jordan Professional League.  Last month, when the League was on break as the national team played at the Asian Cup, the U-23 team played four friendlies losing  to Manshieh 2-1, beating Wihdat 5-2, holding Faisali 0-0 and beating Jazira 2-1.