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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - ordan went up 11 spots to 92nd in the latest FIFA World Rankings issued on the weekend as Argentina took over the top spot from Germany.

Jordan climbed to 9th among Asian teams trailing Iran (38), Japan (50), South Korea (52), Australia (59), the UAE (69), Uzbekistan (75), China (77) and Iraq (86).

Argentina in the top 10 is followed by Germany, Belgium, Columbia, Netherlands, Brazil, Portugal, Romania, England and Wales.

Uruguay, France and Spain are out of the top 10.

Meanwhile, the Kingdom beat Tajikistan 3-1 in their opening Group B qualifier for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, doubling as part of the qualification for 2019 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup as well. In other Group B matches, Bangladesh held Tajikistan 1-1 after they lost to Kyrgyzstan 3-1 and Australia beat Kyrgyzstan 2-1 as 40 teams are playing home and away in a round-robin format in the second qualifying round, which runs until March 2016.

Jordan will next play Kyrgyzstan on September 3, before facing Bangladesh on September 8 and Australia on October 8 in Leg 1. The next phase will be led by Belgian Paul Put, who was recently contracted by the Jordan Football Association as head coach. He replaced Ahmad Abdul Qader, who took the helm in the transitional period, following the departure of Ray Wilkins under whom the team failed miserably and did not advance past the quarters of the 2015 AFC Asian Cup.

In their latest friendly, Jordan beat Trinidad & Tobago 3-0. Earlier, they played four friendlies holding Kuwait 2-2, Lebanon 0-0, losing 2-1 to Saudi Arabia and 1-0 to Syria.

The Jordanian squad had the most memorable World Cup qualifying journey in 2013 when they lost a possible chance to play at the World Cup for the first time. Jordan advanced to play then World’s 6th ranked Uruguay in an intercontinental qualifying tie for a place in the 2014 World Cup, where they lost the home game 5-0 and held the former World Cup champs 0-0 in the away match.

Jordan had never reached that far in World Cup qualifying since taking part in the qualifiers as of 1985. Round 3 had been the furthest Jordan reached in the past seven times in the qualifiers since 1986.

In the Asian Cup, Jordan reached the championship three times since first taking part in qualifiers in 1972. The pinnacle was at the 13th Asian Cup, when they lost to Japan in the quarter-finals and jumped to the best ever FIFA Ranking of 37 in August 2004. In 2011 Jordan again reached the quarter-finals.

*Jordan Times