Women’s football team set to finalise line-up

AMMAN — The women’s team has regrouped to prepare for Round 2 Asian qualifiers set for September — the second phase of the qualifying journey to the 2016 Summer Olympics football tournament.

Jordan qualified to Round 2 after topping Asian Group B qualifiers when it beat Uzbekistan 2-0, Hong Kong 1-0 and Palestine 6-0. 

The squad has now received an invitation to play two matches in Romania in August ahead of Round 2 while the Jordan Football Association is still awaiting confirmation of the Round 2 venue where the Kingdom will join other group leaders Myanmar, Taiwan, Vietnam and Thailand following which the top team will move to Round 3 to play the top five seeded teams — Japan, Australia, South Korea, North Korea and China — which eventually qualifies the top two to represent Asia at the Olympic Games.

 It will be Jordan’s second time in the qualifiers after the 2012 London Olympic qualifications when they advanced to Round 2. 

Last year, the senior women’s team exited Round 1 of the Asian Games and the AFC Women’s Asian Cup 2014 where it was also the only Arab team to have ever qualified. The squad is reigning West Asian champ after winning the title with Iran, Lebanon and the UAE missing the event.

In 2014, the women’s U-19 team was eliminated from Group A qualifiers for the 2015 AFC U-19 Women’s Championship. The squad was hoping to qualify for the second time after Jordan was the first Arab team to play in the 3rd finals in 2007. The U-16 girls team also failed to qualify to the 2015 AFC Under-16 Women’s Championship after qualifying in 2013. 

Jordan has started the countdown to host the 2016 U-17 Women’s World Cup. The women’s team went up two spots to 54th in the latest FIFA World Rankings and the Kingdom leads all Arab teams at 11th in the Asian continent ahead of Japan, North Korea, Australia, China, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Myanmar and Uzbekistan.

Germany leads the top 10 table followed by the US, France, Japan, Sweden, England, Brazil, Canada, North Korea and Australia.