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Ammon News - Jordan Times — Women’s footballers now shift focus to the local agenda as the league is slated to kick off on November 23.

Shabab Urdun have been the champs seven times since 2005, and Amman only won once in 2010.

Coaches noted their teams regrouped too late for the league as the national team players were on duty until end of October after their return from the ASEAN Women’s Football Championships in Myanmar.

The Kingdom was the only Arab team competing and was invited this year alongside Australia and Japan hoping to improve the quality of the regional tournament which includes Southeast Asian zone teams. The official tournament started in 2006 and has been won twice by Vietnam, Myanmar and Australia and once by Thailand.

Meanwhile, the draw for the 2014 Asian Cup in Vietnam will be held this weekend with the eight qualifying teams divided into two groups. They are host Vietnam, titleholder Australia, Japan, China, South Korea, Thailand, Myanmar and Jordan. The top five teams will qualify to the 2015 Women’s World Cup in Canada.

The women’s team, now 53rd in FIFA rankings, will regroup following the league to resume preparations for the Asian Cup finals.

The national women’s U-16 team has been eliminated from the Asia Football Confederation (AFC) late September, after losing 6-0 to North Korea and 2-1 to Taiwan in Group B.

The top team from each group moved on to the semis and the three top teams moved on to the U-16 World Cup in Costa Rica.

Group A includes China, Australia and Bahrain, Group C sees South Korea, Thailand and Uzbekistan, and Japan, Iran and Guam will play in Group D.

The national team topped Group A qualifiers in Amman to reach the final, beating Palestine 9-0 before overcoming Bahrain 4-0.

Jordanian women’s football has progressively made its mark in the continent. In 2006, Jordan was the first Arab team to qualify to the 3rd AFC U-19 Women’s Championship finals in 2007.