The 4th edition of the WAFF Women's Championship will be held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates between 24th April and 2nd May 2011. So far, 6 countries have confirmed their participation: Jordan, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Bahrain, Palestine
I hope our (Kuwait) women's team participate again. Sure, last time was embarrassing but it shouldn't discourage them from playing football.
The UAE FA has requested that the tournament be postponed for a few days. It will now be played 1st-9th May. It seems like it will be only the 6 teams mentioned above. They were supposed to be trying to get women's football into the GCC Games, but this did not happen. I think this would be excellent - Kuwait/Qatar/Oman would all be at a similar level. Bahrain and UAE would fight for the title. Saudi Arabia probably would not enter.
It's a shame Kuwait decided not to send their team. I blame the Islamist MPs over this, since they made a huge deal out of it last time.
Iraq and Qatar also lost by double-figures scores in the recent Arabia Cup in their first women's matches, and it seems like they, like Kuwait, also do not want to be embarrassed again. Qatar also withdrew from the recent Olympic qualifiers where they were meant to compete in Jordan.
http://www.the-waff.com/more.asp?newsid=189&catid=1&lang=arb Tournament is postponed. It might take place in October.
I'm not surprised. The article said the number of participants went down to only four countries, so it makes perfect sense postponing the tournament until more teams are able to join them. Couple that with the recent political events taking place in the region right now, I think it's a wise decision to postpone the tournament.
Tournament will now be played from 3-12 October UAE, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Iraq and Bahrain. Draw will be made soon...
There's also some talk of a 4-team friendly tournament in Palestine after this tournament, with Palestine, Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait involved.
So, pretty much as expected. Jordan, Bahrain, UAE and Iran will be the 4 semi-finalists unless there is some sort of miracle.
Is there usually one team that dominates, or are those four pretty much on par? from what anyone could possibly know at least
Iran and Jordan are 'traditionally' the best 2 in the region (in that they contested the first 2 West Asian finals in 2005 and 2007, Jordan winning 2-1 each time). Also, they have both participated in continental (Asian) tournaments, and Olympic qualifying. Iran and Jordan have also both defeated established competitors Taiwan (in 2009 and 2008 respectively, 3-2 and 1-0), so they are generally considered to be the best of the West Asian teams. Jordan also won last year's Arabia Cup in Bahrain, with hosts Bahrain finishing 3rd in a field of 8 teams. UAE hosted, and surprisingly won the West Asian Championship last year, despite not having ever played any international matches before the tournament began. They got through an easy group (with Palestine and Kuwait) before beating Bahrain 4-0 in the semis and then Jordan 1-0 in the final. Bahrain seem to be improving as well - they lost 9-0 to Jordan and 7-0 to Iran in the 2005 West Asian Championship, but beat Iran 1-0 last year, and just drew 2-2 with Jordan in this year's edition. They also managed 1 win from 3 friendly matches against higher-ranked India just before the tournament. In yesterday's matches, Bahrain drew 2-2 with Jordan, and Palestine beat Iraq 3-0. So to me, it seems that Bahrain and UAE are the new challengers to Jordan and Iran's domination. It's good for the region that there are more teams who can play competitive matches. Lebanon, Palestine and Syria don't seem to have made the necessary improvements to make any real challenge, while Iraq are still finding their feet. For what it's worth, this is how I currently rank the active West Asian teams (teams that are not ranked have not yet played any women's internationals). 1. Iran 2. Jordan 3. UAE 4. Bahrain 5. Lebanon 6. Palestine 7. Syria 8. Iraq 9. Kuwait 10. Qatar Unranked: Oman, Saudi Arabia, Yemen
GROUP B Iran 4 - UAE 1 Lebanon 1 - Syria 0 STANDINGS GROUP A 1. Bahrain 1-1-0 [+12] 2. Jordan 1-1-0 [+7] 3. Palestine 1-0-1 [-4] 4. Iraq 0-0-2 [-15] GROUP B 1. Iran 2-0-0 [+10] 2. UAE 1-0-1 [+2] 3. Lebanon 1-0-1 [-6] 4. Syria 0-0-2 [-7]
Jordan only managed a 4-0 win over Iraq today, so Bahrain just need a victory against Palestine in the later match to win the group. A bit surprising this, considering Bahrain beat Iraq 12-0 earlier, and Jordan defeated Iraq 20-0 just last year. Looks like UAE v Bahrain and Iran v Jordan in the semi-finals.
They're doing a better job than last year when they lost 1-0 to Bahrain and 4-0 to Jordan and went out before the semi-final stage. But I think that this too wasn't Iran's "A team". In any case, it's an A-team tournament, so to all intents and purposes, it's Iran A in the record books and for the FIFA rankings. So, it's up to the Iranian FA what team they send, but if they get poor results, then they shouldn't blame the players. I think they should be sending the A team as a mark of respect for the other teams. Jordan and Bahrain, at least, deserve respect. Also, the national team doesn't get that much opportunity to play matches, so they should be playing as many as possible.
Results from today: Jordan 4-0 Iraq Bahrain 8-0 Palestine Bahrain go through to the semi-finals as group winners, Jordan as runners-up.
UAE 5-0 Lebanon today. UAE through, as expected, to the semi-finals. Iran v Syria today should be a similar scoreline.
3rd place: Bahrain 0-0 Jordan (Bahrain won 4-3 on penalties) Final: UAE 2-2 Iran (UAE won 6-5 on penalties) 2 wins in a row for UAE