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Kingdom Plays Palestine Today

By Aline Bannayan, Jordan Times, Amman

Oct. 26--AMMAN -- The women's national football team plays Palestine today at 5:00pm in a friendly match at Jerusalem's Faisal Husseini Stadium.

Much anticipation surrounds the match which is the first for the Palestinian team on home turf. The men's team of both Jordan and Palestine met last year in celebration of the opening of the same stadium with FIFA President Sepp Blatter attending.

Jordan's coach Maher Abu Hantash said his players were looking forward to the match. "We will have a mix of veterans and younger players as some team members are taking part in the 3rd Asian indoor Games in Vietnam," Abu Hantash was quoted in Al Rai as saying.

Palestine's coach Hani Abu Leil said Jordan was far more prepared and had played more matches on the Arab and Asian fronts and has a women's football league. "Our team and league are just starting off and they need a couple of years to be ready. However, the match will help boost women's football and sports in the country,'' he was quoted by Al Rai as saying.

Jordan last played in July in second stage qualifiers for the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) 2010 Women's Asian Cup where they failed to clinch the qualifying berth after losing to Myanmar 3-0. They beat Chinese Taipei 1-0 in the second round.

The team had an impressive preliminary round performance where they drew 2-2 with Uzbekistan and scored three wins: 9-0 over the Maldives, 7-1 over Kyrgyzstan and 5-0 over Palestine.

Although a relatively new sport in the country, women's football is gaining increasing popularity among players and fans in the Kingdom. The national women's team, 51st in the FIFA women's ranking, are the highest ranked Arab team leading Morocco 61st, Algeria (64), Tunisia (70).

On the Asian scene, in 2005, Jordan was the first Arab team to qualify to the 3rd AFC U-19 Women's Championship finals. In 2006 and 2008, they were eliminated from the qualifiers.

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Copyright (c) 2009, Jordan Times, Amman

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