Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Petra: 2013 AFC U-19 Women's Championship Qualification Round One Group B hosts Jordan made a blistering start to their quest to reach the finals for the first time since 2006 with an impressive 8-0 victory over Palestine in their campaign curtain raiser on Thursday.
Defender Haya Khalil opened the scoring ten minutes into the match at the Petra Stadium and after Mai Sweilem made it 2-0 on the quarter-of-the-hour mark with the first of her hat-trick before skipper Luna Al Masri netted Jordan's third in the 20th minute.
Sweilem scored the second of her treble five minutes later before Al Masri got her second and Jordan's fifth two minutes from the interval after Razan Al Zagha had got her name on the scoresheet four minutes earlier.
Palestine, who are coached by Jordanian Hani Al Majdoubah, tightened up their defence in the second-half but still conceded two further goals with Sweilem completing her hat-trick in the 57th minute before Luna Al Momani completed the rout with 17 minutes of the match remaining.
Despite the 8-0 pummelling of the Palestinians Jordan had to be content with second place in the standings after the first round of Group B matches with Iran taking top spot on goal difference thanks to their 12-2 annihilation of Tajikistan in the earlier match at the same venue.
The top two sides in each of the three groups will advance to Qualification Round 2 where they will join Thailand and Vietnam. The eight teams will be divided into two groups of four and play a round-robin league in a centralised format with the top two teams meeting in a play-off to determine who advances to next year's AFC U-19 Women's Championship.