Courtesy: Jordan Times

Futsal part in bold


Shabab Urdun win women’s league

By Aline Bannayan

AMMAN - Shabab Urdun won their fourth consecutive women’s football league title when they beat Amman 1-0 on Friday. Olympic took third place after beating Orthodoxi.

During the last stage of the tournament, Shabab Urdun beat Olympic 6-0, while Amman beat Orthodoxi 3-0. A record 10 teams took part in the league, which started in November. In addition to the top four, teams represented Istiqlal from Amman, Zarqa and Prince Mohammad clubs from Zarqa, Khaleej from Aqaba, Kufr Rakeb from the North and Madaba.

The perseverance of players of Amman Club paid off as they took the runner-up spot. During the first round of the event, they led the standings handing reigning champs Shabab Urdun a 1-0 defeat, overcoming Olympic 4-0 and tying Orthodoxi 0-0.

Amman have a promising base of players who won the U-16 title. Orthodoxi came second and Istiqlal third. On the other hand, Orthodoxi grabbed the futsal championship title with Amman second and Shabab Urdun third.

With the league now completed, players will switch focus to the preparations of the national team that will represent Jordan in the upcoming AFC Asian Cup qualifiers which will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, starting April 25.

Jordan was drawn in Group A with Bangladesh, Palestine, Kyrgyzstan and Maldives with the top two teams from each group moving on to the second round.

Head coach Maher Abu Hantash will now name the initial line-up of 30 players which he was monitoring during the course of the league.

Although a relatively new sport in the country, women’s football is gaining increasing popularity among players and fans in the Kingdom. On the regional scene, the women’s team won the 1st West Asian Championship in 2005, the same year they took third place at the Asian Indoor Championships. They were the sole Arab side at the 2006 Doha Asian Games, and in 2007, they retained the 2nd West Asian Women’s Football Championship after beating Iran in the final. Last summer, they finished runner-up at the inaugural West Asian Women’s Futsal Championship in Amman.

On the Asian scene, Jordan was eliminated from qualifiers for the 5th Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U-19 Women’s Championship in 2008.

In 2005, Jordan was the first Arab team to qualify to the 3rd AFC Women’s Championship.

In 2006, they were eliminated from the qualifiers for the 4th AFC U-19 Women’s Championship after failing to take one of two qualifying berths to the finals.







Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com