One question for each 2026 World Cup team. Are Jordan better than people realize, or are they actually overrated?
Would you love me in a Bentley? Would you love me on a $95 bus from downtown Boston to Gillette Stadium? Footnote is asking 48 questions, and they’re all about the 48 teams at the 2026 World Cup. This post is part of our Group J preview. You can also read previews of Argentina, Algeria, and Austria.
Are Jordan out of their depth, better than people realize, or slightly overrated?
There are a few ways to look at Jordan ahead of their first-ever World Cup.
The most popular view is that they are slightly out of their depth. Jordan narrowly qualified ahead of Iraq and Oman and come into the tournament ranked 63rd by FIFA. Much of the soccer-watching world assumes that they are mostly there to make up the numbers. Opta’s projections, for example, have them at a 41.3% chance to escape the group.
While that also makes it sound like they are coinflip to advance, those are also pretty low odds for a tournament where 75% of third place teams will advance from the group stage.
But there is some statistical evidence that they are better than people realize. They’re coming into the tournament with an ELO rating of 1685, which ranks them at a more respectable 50th in the world. More pertinently that rating is less than 100 points behind group rivals Algeria and just 150 behind Austria. Based on how those ratings are calculated, that translates to just a few wins over the course of the last couple of years separating Jordan from their primary competition to advance from the group. Based on the ELO ratings, it would seem entirely possible for Jordan to pull off an upset against one or both of those teams.
And yet there is a caveat to that ELO rating. Jordan’s current standing is built largely on the back of a run to the final at the 2023 Asian Cup and being hard-to-beat in a weak qualifying group. Continental tournaments and qualifying two of the most heavily weighted competitions in calculating ELO rating, so that one tournament run followed by avoiding defeat to Oman and Kuwait in qualifying gave Jordan’s ranking a big boost.
And it’s hard to parse exactly how much that Asian Cup run should inspire optimism in Jordan’s chances. There’s no replacement for knockout football, and Jordan’s 2-0 upset of South Korea in the semifinal in particular is a sign of a well-organized squad that can put together a cohesive performance against a good side. But Qatar have won the last two Asian Cups, and they followed their 2019 championship by not coming particularly close to winning a World Cup game.
Each layer of Jordan, then, seems somewhat contradictory: On the surface they are minnows, but under that surface they are a competent team, but under that surface their statistical record might be a little inflated.
So how will they actually perform at the World Cup?
First and foremost, they will have to defend. And they had a great record of doing that in qualifying. Generally employing a back 5, Jordan conceded just eight goals across 10 games in their qualification campaign. If their defensive unit can continue that kind of performance, they will at least be able to stay in games
Then to steal results, they will rely on the attacking axis of Ali Olwan and Musa Al-Taamari. Olwan is Jordan’s all-time leading scorer. Despite an up-and-down club career spent bouncing between various clubs across West Asia and the Middle East, he has an impressive record for the national team, scoring 27 goals in 58 appearances, including a hat-trick over Oman to secure qualification for the tournament.
Al-Taamari, meanwhile, is the only player on the squad with major European club experience. Coming off a season in which he played almost every game for a Rennes side that finished sixth in France and tallied six goals along the way, Al-Taamari will be an attacking key for Jordan, and their main player used to breaking down defense the calibre of Algeria or Austria or Argentina.
So while it can be difficult to assess from the outside exactly how much of a chance Jordan has, their formula for success is going to be a very classic World Cup underdog story: disciplined defending and creating good chances whenever they can.
That’s the combination that got them through to the finals of the Asian Cup and qualified them for the World Cup. And if it can work on a bigger stage, then who cares about an inflated ELO rating?
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