Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Bahrain beat Jordan 1-0 in the final of the football championship of the Arab Games which concluded in Doha Friday.

Bahrain scored in the final minutes of the match, killing Jordan’s hopes of winning its third Pan-Arab Games title, settling for the silver medal.

The bronze went to Kuwait which defeated Palestine in an earlier match.

Jordan beat Palestine 4-1 and was held 0-0 with Libya and Sudan before they beat Kuwait 2-0 in the semis to reach the final. Bahrain beat Palestine 3-1 in the other semi.

The official national team did not represent Jordan at the Pan-Arab Games.

Instead, technical director Adnan Hamad enlisted some players from the Olympic team and younger players on the national squad. After winning gold in 1997 and 1999 Pan-Arab Games, Jordan did not compete in football at the 10th Games in Algeria and 11th Games in Egypt.

On Wednesday, Jordan came 82nd in the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Football ranking.

After playing all but one in Round 3 Group A World Cup qualifiers, the squad is now 8th among Asian Football Confederation (AFC) teams and 7th overall among Arab teams.

Top 10 Asian teams in the AFC are four-time Asian champs Japan at 19th, followed by Australia (23rd), South Korea (32nd), Iran (45th), China (71st), Uzbekistan (75th), Iraq (78th), Jordan (82nd), Oman (85th) and Qatar (93rd).

Algeria still leads top 10 Arab teams at 30th, followed by Egypt (31st), Tunisia (59th), Morocco (61st), Libya (63rd), Iraq (78th), Jordan (82nd), Oman (85th), Qatar (93rd) and Kuwait (99th).


* Jordan Times