The Jordanian national football team's first international match was played in 1953 in Egypt where the team were defeated by Syria 3–1. The first FIFA World Cup Qualifiers Jordan took part in was the 1986 qualifiers, but they are yet to qualify for a World Cup. For the first time in their history, Jordan have qualified for the final round of the FIFA World Cup qualifiers in the 2014 World Cup qualification campaign.
The first (Jordanian) football coach, Mohammad Awad, to attain achievements for the Jordan national team between 1992 and 1999, when he first helped his country Jordan win the Jordan International tournament of 1992 and both tournaments of the Pan Arab Games, starting in 1997 in Beirut, and 1999 in Amman.
The Jordan national football team had begun making much more improvements, under the Serbian head coach Branko Smiljanić, who had helped Jordan attain great match results in the first round of the 2002 World Cup qualifiers, but failed to help Jordan qualify for the next round. Brapanko also helped Jordan reach the semifinals of the 2002 Arab Nations Cup and got Jordan to win the fourth place in the 2000 West Asian Football Federation Championship and the second place in the 2004 edition in Syria, but failed to help Jordan win these tournaments. After he resigned from coaching Jordan, the Egyptian Mahmoud El-Gohary agreed to take Branko's place as head coach.
Under the leadership of El-Gohary, the Jordan national team was able to qualify for their first AFC Asian Cup tournament, in China 2004, and helped Jordan reached the quarter-finals of the tournament, but failed to qualify for the semi-finals after losing to Japan in a penalty shoot-out after the match had ended with extra time in a 1–1 draw. But thanks to El-Gohary, the Jordan team reached its highest FIFA world ranking, which was the 37th place in 2004. Just like Serbian Branko, El-Gohary also helped Jordan achieve great match results in FIFA World Cup qualifications for 2006 in Jordan's first round, but also failed to help Jordan qualify. In the WAFF championship tournaments of 2004 and 2007, El-Gohary helped Jordan win the third place in 2004 and helped Jordan reach the semi-finals in 2007. After coaching Jordan for five out of six matches in the 2007 Asian Cup qualifiers, El-Gohary retired as a football coach, the Portuguese Nelo Vingada took over as head coach of Jordan but was not able to help Jordan qualify for the 2007 Asian Cup.
Another opportunity to show Vingada's worthiness as head coach came in the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification campaign. But after failing to help Jordan qualify for the 2010 World Cup, Vingada was able to help Jordan win second place in the 2008 West Asian Football Federation Championship. Next up were the 2011 AFC Asian Cup qualification matches starting from January 2009. After getting off to an awful start by not winning the first two matches of the six, he was sacked by the Jordan Football Association and replaced by the Iraqi Adnan Hamad, one of the best coaches in Asia known for his big successes with his national team Iraq as head coach, as well as Iraq U-23 and other Iraq youth teams, and clubs. His first experiences with Jordanian football players took place as he was coaching Jordanian football club Al-Faisaly from 2006–2008 and achieved great results with that team as well.
After helping Jordan qualify for their second Asian Cup tournament, Qatar 2011, Hamad began shouting 'Allahu Akbar' for the Jordan national team in September 2010, when they had the 2010 West Asian Football Federation Championship hosted in the country of Jordan. Hamad prepared for that tournament with a couple of friendlies as well as three more to prepare for the Asian Cup tournament in Qatar. Just like Mahmoud El-Gohary, Hamad also helped Jordan qualify for the quarterfinals in the Asian Cup, but failed to progress to the semi-finals as they were defeated by Uzbekistan 2–1. Hamad was also got Jordan to win second place in the 2011 Pan Arab Games in Qatar. Hamad helped Jordan finish third in the final round of Asian group qualifying for the 2014 World Cup. He was replaced ahead of the final stages by the Egyptian Hossam Hassan to lead them to the play-off round against Uzbekistan to determine the AFC participant in the intercontinental play-off. The games took place on 6 and 10 September 2013. With the two teams still evenly matched at full-time in the second leg, Jordan eventually progressed to the intercontinental playoff after winning 9–8 on penalties. Unfortunately, the Jordanians missed their very first FIFA World Cup debut after losing 5–0 against the formidable Uruguayan team, after the goalless draw from the second leg. Hassan also helped Jordan to qualify to the 2015 Asian Cup. On 3 September 2014, Ray Wilkins was appointed as the new head coach of Jordan. He led Jordan at the 2015 Asian Cup, where they were eliminated in group-stages for the first time after two losses against Iraq and Japan and a win over Palestine.
Jordan's performance remained in stagnation when the Jordanian Chivalrous could not make it to the final round of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification, losing 0–1 to Kyrgyzstan and 1–5 to Australia. After that, Jordan would qualify for 2019 Asian Cup, where Jordan made an outstanding performance at the group stage, beating Australia and Syria to become the first team to reach the round of sixteen; but they were stunned by Vietnam after penalty shootout 2–4.
The following players have been called to Jordan's national team in the last 12 months.
Pos.
Player
Date of birth (age)
Caps
Goals
Club
Latest call-up
INJ Withdrew due to injury PRE Preliminary squad / standby RET Retired from the national team SUS Serving suspension WD Player withdrew from the squad due to non-injury issue.