Jordan

Jordan 2001 Home, matchworn v Hungary

Always a difficult nation to source thanks to the existence of so many more popular things called Jordan. Then, when you do finally source them, you get something boring like this! There’s nothing wrong with this Adidas template, there’s a good split of red and white, everything’s set out nicely, but there isn’t anything special here. The flag badge is pretty cool and the giant “Jordan” on the back, just in case you forget which nation they are, is always interesting. However, there’s a lot of space taken up without much of interest. A decent shirt, but not an interesting one.

While sometimes also used with a shield logo, this design was used across their 2002 World Cup qualifiers. Up against Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Chinese Taipei, they fell short. They beat Chinese Taipei home and away and drew both matches with Uzbekistan, but then lost both matches against Turkmenistan to leave them 3^rd in the group and out of contention. Not an ideal performance when only the group winners would progress.

While not a highlight, that certainly isn’t unusual for Jordan. They tend to be competitive without achieving a lot, reaching the final World Cup qualification round in 2014 qualifiers, but only having a 5-0 play-off loss to Uruguay to show for it. They tend to be the side that competes well with everyone but the top teams. In the Asian Cup, they’ve only missed out on 1 tournament since the expansion to 16 teams (2007) and escaped the groups all but once so far. However, they’ve never reached a semi-final. In the WAFF Championships they’ve come runners-up three times, the Arab Cup has brought a 3^rd and a 4^th place finish but that elusive title finally comes in the 1997 and 1999 Pan Arab Games.

Debuting in 2006, the Jordanian women’s national team has struggled in Asia as a whole, losing all 6 of their Asian Cup matches to date and missing out on 2022 qualification on penalties alone. They’ve also never won an Asian Games match, with only a solitary draw to their name. They tend to be strong in early qualifiers and much weaker in later ones. However, WAFF is where they shine, with 5 titles from 7 tournaments, showing their domination of West Asia. Men’s youth football is slightly better than the senior side, taking WAFF titles in 2021 (U23) and 2022 (U16) as well as an U20 World Cup appearance in 2007 after a 4^th place in the Asian Cup. However, they’ve only recently started to reach the Asian Cup at U20 level consistently and never have done so at U17 level. Their only good U23 finish happened outside of Olympic qualifiers. Their women’s youth sides fall a bit shorter than the senior side, but still have WAFF titles at every age level and an Asian Cup appearance for both U20s and U17s, though only a solitary win.

Perhaps surprisingly, beach soccer is not something that Jordan have ever participated in. But they have been active in futsal. Reluctant to enter AFC competition, their exposure has been limited, with only 2 Asian Cup appearances in recent years (but no wins). However they’ve twice been runners-up at WAFF level and made reasonable progress at the likes of the Arab Futsal Cup and the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games. They’ve been less active in women’s futsal, withdrawing from AFC futsal but finishing 2^nd in both WAFF Championships they’ve played in. They also came 3^rd and 2^nd in their 2 appearances at the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games. When active in both genders they’ve achieved some positive results, but they’ve not been active enough for huge success.

Drawn in a 2022 qualifying group with Australia, Kuwait, Nepal and Chinese Taipei, Jordan were expected to try to compete with Australia. A place as one of the best 2^nd place nations and therefore a spot in the final qualifying round would certainly have been the goal, but their 2 draws with Kuwait and a worse goal differences consigned them to 3^rd place with neither side progressing any further. Progression was expected to be their limit, really, but not achieving that certainly feels like a disappointment.