Jordan plays Kuwait inU23 West Asia Championship

AMMAN — The Kingdom’s U23 football plays Kuwait Wednesday evening in their opening match of the 6thU23 West Asia Championshiphosted in Oman March 19-25.

It is Jordan’s fifth time at the competition grouping eight competing teams in four groups: UAE vs Bahrain, Saudi Arabia vs Oman, Syria, vs Lebanon and Kuwait vs Jordan. The winners will move to the semis with the rest playing for final positions. 

Jordan exited Round 1 in 2015, won the title in 2021, did not play in 2022, exited the semis in 2023, and finished 5th in 2024.Iran won the inaugural U23 West Asia Championshiptitle in 2015, Jordan in 2021, Saudi in 2022, Iraq in 2023 and South Korea 2024.

The event will be a good chance for assessment and fine tuning ahead of the U23 Asian Cup qualifiers slated for Sept 1-9.  In 2024, and in their 6th time at the U23 Asian Cup, the squaddisappointed fans,exitingthe 6th AFC U23 Asian CupinRound 1of the competitionwhich was aqualifierto the Olympic Games. Jordan lost 4-1 to Indonesia, tied Australia 0-0 and lost to Qatar 2-1.

In previous editions, Jordan had their best performance finishing 3rd in 2014, reaching the quarters in 2016, exiting Round 1 in 2018,  reaching the quartersin 2020 and exitingRound 1in 2022.

Earlier this year, the U20 squad exited Round 1 of the Asian Cup(previously the AFC Youth Championship and AFC U-19 Championship) which is a qualifying tournament to the U20 World Cup.  Similarly, Jordan exited the qualifiers of the U17 Asian Cup in 2024 and 2022.