Jordan’s U-16 women’s team leaves for Thailand

AMMAN — The women’s U-16 national football team has arrived in Thailand to play Group A qualifiers for the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U-16 Women’s Championship.

The event, kicking off August 27, will see Jordan play alongside Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Guam, after Pakistan pulled out. There are 24 teams playing in four groups with the top team from each group advancing to the championship. Last edition’s top four — North Korea, Japan, China and Thailand — have qualified.

Jordan’s squad will be missing some players who are on the U-17 team line-up currently preparing for the Women’s World Cup kicking off September 30 in the Kingdom.

The team just concluded a training camp in Egypt where they beat the U-19 Egyptian team 2-0 and lost 3-1.

The women’s U-19 national team also has Asian Group A qualifiers for the 2017 AFC U-19 Women’s Championship. The qualifiers set for October 29 will see Jordan play alongside Australia, Singapore and Lebanon and the Northern Mariana Islands. The top team from each group moves to the championship in 2017.

The women’s national team has also regrouped to start preparations for qualifiers for the 2018 AFC Women’s Championship starting in April 2017. 

For the past decade, Jordan’s teams have been competing in all women’s age divisions in the Asian zone. In 2014, Jordan was eliminated from Group A qualifiers for the 2015 AFC U-19 Women’s Championship after qualifying as the only Arab team in 2007. 

The U-16 girls team also failed to qualify to the 2015 AFC Under-16 Women’s Championship after qualifying in 2013. In 2015, the women’s national team also exited the 2015 AFC Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament with a winless record.

Last year, in men’s competitions, the U-16 boys, and U-19 youth were eliminated from their respective latest Asian qualifiers. The Kingdom had earlier qualified to the AFC U-19 Championship four times. In 2006, the team scored the country’s biggest sporting success when they qualified to the 2007 FIFA Youth World Cup after reaching the semis and eventually finishing fourth at the Asian U-19 Championship. They exited the group stages in 2008 and 2010, whilereaching the quarters in 2012 and failing to qualify when they exited Group B qualifiers in 2014.