North Korea, Japan join U-17 Women’s World Cup semifinals

AMMAN — It’s down to the final four at the 2016 U-17 Women’s World Cup being held in Jordan.

The matchup will see Spain versus Japan and Venezula against North Korea in the semifinals on Monday.

On Thursday, North Korea beat Ghana 1-0 on a penalty shot by K. Pom Ui, while Japan brushed off England 3-0 at Al Hassan International Stadium in Irbid.

“Overall, I feel my players could have done better and that our physical condition was not as good as I hoped it would be. We will now have to carefully consider their recovery and training programme for the next few days before going into the semi-finals,” North Korea’s coach Sin Jong-Bok told Fifa.com

For the second edition running, Venezuela and Spain are through to semifinals. The duo’s berths in the last four were secured with identical 2-1 victories that left the winners of Group A and B, Mexico and Germany respectively, heading home.

The final and the 3rd and 4th place match will be played on October 21.

Jordan was eliminated from the first round losing 5-0 to New Zealand, 4-1 to Mexico and 6-0 to Spain. Sarah Abu Sabbah made history by scoring Jordan’s only goal in the Kingdom’s inaugural appearance in the U-17 World Cup.

Jordan joined New Zealand, Brazil, the United States, Paraguay, Nigeria, Cameroon, Canada exiting the first round.

The biggest sporting event to be hosted in the Kingdom also marked the first time that a women’s tournament of this scale has been hosted in the Middle East region. It was Jordan’s first appearance at the U-17 Women’s World Cup and also its first appearance at any level at a FIFA World Cup.