Jordan aims to win first match at women’s Asian U-19 qualifiers

AMMAN  — Jordan plays the Northern Mariana Islands on Friday in their opening match of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U-19 Women’s Championship 2017 qualifiers in Nanjing, China.

The national team will seek to score an opening win ahead of their vital match against Group A favourites Australia, which scored a 16-0  (half-time 11-0) win over the Northern Marianas. Jordan will play Australia on November 6 with the top team from each group moving to the championship in 2017. 

Asian teams are in a 14-nation race  with the aim to qualify to the finals with the top four teams of the 2015 AFC U-19 Championship — champions Japan, North Korea, South Korea and China — receiving a direct qualification to the tournament leaving the 14 teams above to battle it out in the qualifiers. The winner from each group (total four teams) will qualify to the finals (eight teams in total).

The participating nations are:

Group A: Australia, Jordan and Northern Mariana Islands.

Group B: Uzbekistan, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong and Tajikistan.

Group C:  Thailand, Myanmar, Palestine and Kyrgyzstan.

Group D: Iran, Vietnam and India.

Uzbekistan became the first side to qualify for the AFC U-19 Women’s Championship China 2017 after beating Chinese Taipei 1-0 in its last qualifying match in Group B .

Jordan had qualified as the only Arab team in 2007. In 2014, Jordan was eliminated from Group A qualifiers for the 2015 AFC U-19 Women’s Championship.

This year, the U-16 women’s national football team failed to advance past Group A qualifiers for the 2017 AFC U-16 Women’s Championship. The U-16 girls team also failed to qualify in 2015 after qualifying in 2013.

Some members of the U-19 team were on the U-17 team line-up which participated in the Kingdom’s inaugural appearance in the U-17 World Cup in which it lost in the first round 5-0 to New Zealand, 4-1 to Mexico and 6-0 to Spain.