Jordan holds Bahrain to goalless draw in friendly

AMMAN — Jordan’s national football team returned home on Monday after playing Bahrain in its third friendly as part of their training agenda for the 2019 Asian Cup qualifiers kicking off in March 2017.

The match which was held in Manama, ended 0-0 and came after a 1-1 draw with Lebanon. It was the third friendly after the team regrouped last month, with Jordan losing 3-2 to Qatar in the first of 7 friendlies.

The national team was represented by a relatively new line-up without pros playing aboard as the coaching staff tried to give younger team members competitive experience.

“I’m happy with the performance of our line-up. We are striving to build a new team, and giving new players competitive experience needs time,” coach Abdullah Abu Zameh was quoted as saying on the Jordan Football Association website.

Jordan was eliminated from the 2018 World Cup qualifiers doubling as part of the qualification for 2019 Asian Cup. After putting behind elimination from 2018 World Cup qualifiers, Abu Zam’eh, has recalled mainly younger players including Olympic team players.

The national team will regroup for friendlies and camps until the start of the Asian qualifiers from which group winners and four best runners-up (total 12 teams) advance to the 2019 AFC Asian Cup finals and the final round of qualifying for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The next best 24 teams from the preliminary stage of the joint qualifiers will compete in a separate competition for the remaining slots (12 slots or 11 slots + one slot for the host) in the 24-team 2019 Asian Cup.

Jordan is now 79th in the latest FIFA rankings and is now 9th in Asia behind Iran, South Korea, Japan, Uzbekistan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and China. 

The squad last played at the King’s Cup, an international football tournament organised in Thailand where it lost to the hosts in the final. 

In past Asian Cup editions, Jordan reached the championship three times since first taking part in qualifiers in 1972: the pinnacle was at the 13th Asian Cup, when they lost to Japan in the quarter-finals and jumped to the best ever FIFA rank of 37th in August 2004. In 2011, Jordan again reached the quarter-finals.