Iran Women down India to set up Jordan showdown

Iran will meet hosts Jordan on Thursday to determine who advances to the second round of qualification for the 2011 AFC U-16 Women’s Championship after the Iranian girls defeated India 3-0 on Tuesday.

Fatemeh Ardestani opened the scoring at Petra Stadium in the 35th minute before doubling her side’s advantage on the stroke of half-time.

Behnaz Taherkhani added a third two minutes into second-half stoppage time as Iran mirrored the result the Jordanians achieved against India when the South and Central/West Zone qualification group kicked-off on Sunday.

With only the three teams in the group the winners of the Iran-Jordan clash will advance to the second round and with both sides level on points and goal difference there will be a penalty shootout to decide the outcome should the match be tied at the end of the 90 minutes.

The ASEAN Zone group – which consists of hosts Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, Guam and Timor Leste – kicks off in Manila on Friday with the winner of the round-robin league joining Iran or Jordan in the second round, where they will meet the teams that finished 6th to 8th at the last AFC U-16 Women’s Championship (Thailand, Myanmar and Chinese Taipei) for a single-round league tournament in December.

The winners will then join Korea Republic, DPR Korea, Japan, Australia and China at the 2011 AFC U-16 Women’s Championship finals.