Jordan plays Oman in friendly football match

By Aline Bannayan - Oct 03,2017 - Last updated at Oct 03,2017

AMMAN — Jordan plays Oman on Wednesday in a friendly football match in Dubai, which comes amid preparations for resuming return leg 2019 Asian Cup qualifiers.

Jordan will play two qualifiers this month and will seek to repeat their 4-1 win over Afghanistan on October 10 before playing Cambodia on October 14.

The Kingdom last held Bahrain 0-0 in a friendly and later beat Afghanistan to maintain Group C lead after earlier holding Vietnam 0-0 and scoring a 7-0 win over lowly Cambodia.

Vietnam is second in the group after they held Afghanistan 1-1 and beat Cambodia 2-1. Cambodia beat Afghanistan 1-0. The top two teams from each group move to the finals which will be held in the UAE in 2019.

Since first taking part in Asian Cup qualifiers in 1972, Jordan reached the Asian Championship three times: the pinnacle was at the 13th Asian Cup, when they lost to Japan in the quarter-finals. They also reached the Asian Cup in 2011.

Given the limited capabilities of its qualifying group, qualifying to the 2019 Asian Cup should not be a difficult task for Jordan. After elimination from the 2018 World Cup qualifiers, advancing to the Asian finals is a priority but the squad has steadily slid down FIFA rankings, and the team has had an inconsistent two years compared to 2013 when Jordan was on the verge of qualifying to the 2014 World Cup for the first time.

Last month, Jordan dropped two spots to 110th in the latest FIFA rankings and is still out of the Asian top 10. The team’s best FIFA ranking was 37th in 2004 while the lowest ranking was 152nd in 1996.

During the 2013 World Cup qualifying journey, Jordan advanced to play then World’s 6th ranked Uruguay in an intercontinental qualifying tie for a place in the 2014 World Cup. It however lost the home game 5-0 and held the former World Cup champs 0-0 in the away match. Jordan had never reached that far in World Cup qualifying since taking part in the qualifiers. Round 3 had been the furthest Jordan reached in the past seven times in the qualifiers since 1986.

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