U-23 football squad to play North Korea

AMMAN — The Kingdom’s U-23 football team will play North Korea on Friday in the first of three matches as part of its training camp in Ajman, the UAE, ahead of the Olympic qualifiers starting March 25.

The team is slated to play a second match on March 9 against North Korea before facing Lebanon on March 12. En route to the qualifiers in Pakistan, the team will play Bahrain in a friendly on March 17.

Jordan will play 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.

Head coach Jamal Abu Abed will finalise the line-up after the camp and it was reported that he was closely coordinating with Wihdat coach Abdullah Abu Zameh, as many U-23 players are also on Wihdat’s line-up and play AFC Cup matches during the same time.

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.

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

Similarly, the team took bronze in 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.

Before the latest local matches, the squad hosted Oman, losing 2-1 and winning 1-0. They beat Uzbekistan 2-1, held Iran 2-2 and 1-1, held Kuwait 1-1 twice and Qatar 0-0. They finished second at the Palestine International Championship and hosted the England C squad in a historic match, losing 1-0.