Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Jordan plays China on Tuesday in their second match of Group A Round 3 qualifiers for the 2014 FIFA World Cup finals in Brazil.

The 7:00pm match, which will be aired on Jordan TV, will be played at the Amman International Stadium.

Jordan beat Iraq 2-0 in Erbil, Iraq, last week to top the group as China beat Singapore 2-1. Jordan will next play Singapore on October 11.

Round 3 has five groups of four teams playing from September 2 to February 29, 2012 with the top two from each moving on to Round 4.

The squad is optimistic and intent on qualifying as Jordan has never managed to get past the third qualifying Asian group stages of the world’s premier football centrepiece in the past seven times in the qualifiers since 1986.

The national team dropped one spot to 92nd in the latest FIFA ranking. China is 69th, Iraq 109th and Singapore 129th. Jordan beat Tunisia 3-3 and Indonesia 1-0 in two friendlies ahead of the start of the qualifiers.

Hasan Abdul Fatah and Abdullah Theeb, who scored for Jordan against Iraq, are joined by stars Mahmoud Shilbayeh and Hatem Aqel, both of whom were recalled to the national squad after not being in the line-up since the beginning of the year.

Jordan moved to Round 3 after eliminating Nepal in Round 2 with a 9-0 win in Amman and a 1-1 draw in Kathmandu.

Ten Arab teams qualified and will play in five groups.

South Korea, Kuwait, the UAE and Lebanon play in Group B, Japan, Uzbekistan, North Korea and Syria in Group C, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Thailand in Group D, while Iran, Qatar, Bahrain and Indonesia play in Group E.

The qualifiers commenced after Asia’s 16 lowest ranked teams (based on their 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification record) played home-and-away matches with the winners advancing to Round 2 to join 22 higher ranked teams. The winners from Round 2 joined the top five direct entrants (Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Australia and Bahrain) in Round 3.

With their eyes set making it on the international scene, the senior team fared well on the Asian arena reaching the Asian Cup finals twice.

On the Asian scene, since 1972, Jordan reached the Asian Cup finals twice. In 2004, they made it to the quarters and jumped to the best ever FIFA rank of 37th. This year, they bowed out of the 14th Asian Cup quarters and improved their ranking to the best ever since 2007.

In 2006, the U-20 team scored Jordan’s biggest sporting success when they qualified to the FIFA Under-20 World Cup in Canada.

* Jordan Times