Jordan drops in FIFA Rankings

AMMAN  — Jordan’s national football team dropped seven places to 86th in the latest FIFA Rankings issued on the weekend.

The Kingdom also dropped to 10th in Asia trailing Iran (37), Australia (45), South Korea (47), Uzbekistan (49), Saudi Arabia (52), Japan (53), the UAE (66), China (78) and Qatar (85).

Argentina is still No. 1 ahead of Belgium, Germany, Columbia, Brazil, Chile, Portugal, France, Uruguay and Wales in the top10. 

Jordan recently played three friendlies as part of their training agenda for the 2019 Asian Cup qualifiers kicking off in March 2017. They held Bahrain 0-0, Lebanon 1-1 and lost to Qatar 3-2 to Qatar in the first of 7 friendlies. The squad’s last tournament was the King’s Cup, an international football tournament organised in Thailand where they lost to the hosts in the final. 

The national team was represented by a mostly new line-up without pros playing aboard as the coaching staff tried to give younger team members competitive experience. Coach Abdullah Abu Zameh was quoted by the Jordan Football Association website as saying: “We are striving to build a new team, and giving new players competitive experience needs time.” 

Jordan was eliminated from the 2018 World Cup qualifiers doubling as part of the qualification for 2019 Asian Cup. After putting behind elimination from 2018 World Cup qualifiers, Abu Zam’eh, has recalled mainly younger players including Olympic team players.

The national team will regroup for friendlies and camps until the start of the Asian qualifiers from which group winners and four best runners-up (total 12 teams) advance to the 2019 AFC Asian Cup finals and the final round of qualifying for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The next best 24 teams from the preliminary stage of the joint qualifiers will compete in a separate competition for the remaining slots (12 slots or 11 slots + one slot for the host) in the 24-team 2019 Asian Cup. 

In past Asian Cup editions, Jordan reached the championship three times since first taking part in qualifiers in 1972. The pinnacle was at the 13th Asian Cup, when they lost to Japan in the quarter-finals and jumped to the best ever FIFA Rank of 37th in August 2004. 

The Kingdom had the most memorable World Cup qualifying journey in 2013 when they lost a possible chance to play at the World Cup for the first time and advanced to play then World’s 6th ranked Uruguay in an intercontinental qualifying tie for a place in the 2014 World Cup.