U-16 girls football team leaves for Asian qualifiers

AMMAN — The U-16 girls football team headed to Bangladesh on Saturday to play Group B Asian qualifiers that act as a qualifying tournament for the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) finals and U-17 Women’s World Cup.

After Qatar withdrew from the event, Jordan will now start its matches on October 15 when it faces hosts Bangladesh before playing the UAE, Iran and India for the sole qualifying slot from the group. 

In 2013, the U-16 squad was eliminated from the AFC finals after qualifying for the first time. This time, the team’s coach Manar Freij is confident of the line-up’s readiness. “We know we have tough opponents but are optimistic of winning the group and will aim for a win in all our matches,” she was quoted by the local media ahead of the team’s departure.

The U-16 team drew its U-19 counterpart 1-1 in two matches this week. The squad had a training camp in Germany where they played a series of friendlies after a similar camp in Alexandria, Egypt.

The U-19 women’s team is also preparing for Group A Asian Championship qualifiers which will be held in Amman November 3-9
where it will face India, Lebanon and Uzbekistan. The squad hopes to qualify for the second time after Jordan was the first Arab team to play in the 3rd AFC U-19 Women’s Championship finals in 2007. 

The senior women’s team is back home after it exited Round 1 of the Asian Games — tying Taiwan 2-2, losing to China 5-0 and suffering a crushing 12-0 defeat to Japan. Earlier this year, they had a similar early exit at their first Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Women’s 2014 Asian Cup where they were also the only Arab team to have ever qualified.

Jordan will host the 2016 U-17 Women’s World Cup and is now gearing up to implement executive plans to prepare four stadiums as well as 16 practice fields. Jordan beat bids from Uruguay, South Africa, Ireland and Bahrain.