Jordan

Jordan are at a World Cup for the first time in their history, and there is genuinely no point pretending the football projection is what matters most. A nation of 11.5 million people, with a domestic league nobody outside the Arab world watches, qualified ahead of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iraq. They beat Oman 3-0 away in Muscat on June 5, 2025 to clinch the berth — Mousa Al-Tamari, Ali Olwan, and a goalkeeper called Yazid Abu Layla who had never played outside Jordan suddenly carrying their country to a tournament their grandparents thought they would never see.

The football reality is what it is. Jordan are FIFA No. 64, the lowest-ranked side in Group J by 23 places. Their realistic ceiling is one point — drawing Algeria in San Francisco on June 22, or somehow keeping a clean sheet against Austria in the opener on June 16. Their realistic floor is zero points and a heavy goal-difference shellacking from Argentina that effectively ends the tournament before kick-off. The most likely outcome is three losses, possibly one close, exit on the morning of June 28. The 2024 Asian Cup runner-up squad has matured under Sellami, but Group J is a step beyond anything they have played.

What matters at this tournament for Jordan is the experience. Al-Tamari, 29 by the time the tournament starts, gets to play Messi. Olwan, 26, gets to test himself against Aïssa Mandi. Sellami, the Moroccan whose three-year contract was met with shrugs in 2024, gets to coach a nation against Vladimir Petković and Ralf Rangnick. The 23 squad members who play in the Jordanian Pro League get television rights money that will fund youth football for a decade. If they take a single point, the parade route will be drawn. If they don’t, what they came home with — the simple fact of having gone — will still rewrite Jordanian football forever.

On June 5, 2025, in Muscat, Jordan beat Oman 3-0. Mousa Al-Tamari scored, Ali Olwan scored, and a country of 11.5 million people — none of whom had ever watched their men’s national team at a World Cup — qualified for one. Jordan became the first nation to clinch one of the new 48-team berths, ahead of every other debutant on the calendar. The architect was Moroccan coach Jamal Sellami, a former Raja Casablanca title winner who had taken the job only a year earlier and was rewarded with Jordanian citizenship by King Abdullah II for the achievement.

The team that did it is built on structure. Sellami’s Jordan plays a tight 4-2-3-1: two banks of four out of possession, the wingers tucking inside to deny passing lanes, Al-Tamari floating as a 10 in transition and a left-sided creator in possession. The centre-back pairing of Yazan Al-Arab and either Salem Al-Ajalin or Abdullah Naseeb has been remarkably durable. Goalkeeper Yazid Abu Layla, who plays domestically for Al-Hussein, has been the first-choice through the entire two-year qualification campaign. The full backs push up cautiously. The midfield is built to win second balls, not to play through pressure.

Two storylines dominate the build-up. The first is Al-Tamari himself — the Amman-born winger nicknamed the “Jordanian Messi”, who moved from Cypriot football to Belgian football to Montpellier and then, in February 2025, to Rennes for €8-9 million. He is one of only a handful of Arab players ever to start regularly in Ligue 1 and the unquestioned focal point of every Jordanian attack. The second is Yazan Al-Naimat, the centre-forward whose extra-time equaliser kept Jordan alive in the 2024 Asian Cup final against Qatar. He was ruled out of the World Cup with injury in May 2026 — a brutal blow.

Realistically, Jordan are the lowest-ranked side in Group J (FIFA No. 64) and arrive with the steepest learning curve. The opener against Austria in the Bay Area on June 16 will tell us almost everything: if Sellami’s structure can survive Rangnick’s press for 70 minutes and the game stays at one or two goals, this team has a path. If Argentina hangs four on them in Dallas on June 27 with the group already half-decided, the bigger picture is still that an entire football culture got to walk onto the world’s biggest stage for the first time. That alone is worth the price of admission.

When the Jordan Football Association announced in June 2024 that Jamal Sellami would take over the senior national team, the reaction was lukewarm. Jordan had just lost their Asian Cup final to Qatar four months earlier under Hussein Ammouta; Sellami, a Moroccan, was leaving a club job at FUS Rabat. He had never managed outside Morocco. The three-year contract was perceived as a sideways move for the federation. A year later, he was a national hero with Jordanian citizenship granted by royal decree.

Sellami’s playing career was that of a hard-working defensive midfielder — Olympique Casablanca, Raja Casablanca, briefly Beşiktaş in Turkey — and one appearance for Morocco at the 1998 World Cup in France. As a coach he climbed methodically through the Moroccan pyramid: Difaa El Jadida, Hassania Agadir, FUS Rabat, then federation roles with the U17s, U20s, and the home-based senior team that won the African Nations Championship in 2018. The big club job came at Raja Casablanca, where he delivered the 2019-20 Botola Pro title. He returned to FUS Rabat in 2022 and stayed until the Jordan offer arrived.

Tactically, Sellami’s Jordan is a pure 4-2-3-1 organisation team. Two destroyers screen the centre-backs; the wingers tuck in to deny passing lanes; Al-Tamari is the only player consistently licensed to roam. In possession, the team plays direct — long balls to Ali Olwan, second-phase combinations through Al-Tamari, set pieces meticulously worked. Jordan went unbeaten through the third round of AFC qualifying (4W-4D), and the qualifying-clinching 3-0 win over Oman in Muscat in June 2025 was a tactical masterclass: a low block for 30 minutes, a counterattacking goal, then a controlled second half.

His public profile in Jordan is now enormous. King Abdullah II granted him citizenship in late 2025 — a rare honour usually reserved for athletes and diplomats. The realistic expectation for Group J is one point and an honourable exit, but Sellami’s defensive systems have humbled bigger sides before; the 2024 Asian Cup run that he inherited the structure of saw South Korea beaten 2-0 in the semi-final. Don’t expect Jordan to outscore anyone. Do expect them to be uncomfortable to play against.