U-23 football squad concludes local friendlies

AMMAN  — The Kingdom’s U-23 football team played four friendlies over the past week as they near the start of the Olympic qualifying journey on March 25.

With the Jordan Professional League on break to accommodate the national team’s participation at the Asian Cup, the U-23 team lost to Manshieh 2-1, beat Wihdat 5-2, held 0-0 by Faisali before beating Jazira 2-1 over the weekend.

As officials try to arrange friendlies with Asian teams, head coach Jamal Abu Abed said these friendlies were important as “younger players were given a chance to play and prove they were on par with their teammates who were on national team duty”.

In the U-23 qualifiers, a total of 43 teams entered the qualification tournament and will play in 10 groups of five or four teams. Jordan will play in Group B
alongside hosts Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kuwait hoping to qualify for the 2016 AFC U-23 Championship which will take place in Qatar. 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 AFC U-23 Championship from which the top three advance to the 2016 Summer Olympics football tournament.

With only two months remaining ahead of the qualifiers, observers are worried that the team’s agenda will further be hampered by the restart of the local league next week, when players will join their respective clubs in Leg 2.

Last year, the U-23 team faced the same dilemma when it represented Jordan at the Asian Games. Despite a bumpy preparation period with the busy agenda of the national team and local clubs, the squad was impressive and reached the quarters.

Similarly, the team won bronze at the inaugural AFC U-22 Championship after beating South Korea. The event, which has now been renamed the AFC U-23 Championship, saw Iraq beat Saudi Arabia to take the title last season.

Before the latest local matches, the squad hosted Oman losing the first match 2-1 and jumped back to win the second encounter 1-0. In previous friendlies last season, the team lost to Wihdat 2-0, tied Jazira 1-1 and beat Shabab Urdun 2-1. In regional friendlies the team beat Uzbekistan 2-1, held Iran, 2-2 and 1-1, and Kuwait, 1-1 twice, and drew with Qatar 0-0. The team  finished second at the Palestine International Championship and hosted the England C
squad in a historic match, losing 1-0.