CAN 2024: coach Djamel Belmadi assumes responsibility for Algeria
Algeria, African champion in 2019, was eliminated in the first round of the CAN in Ivory Coast.
His coach, Djamel Belmadi, did not hide and takes full responsibility for this very bad run in Ivory Coast.
Algerian coach, Djamel Belmadi, January 16, 2022. REUTERS - THAIER AL-SUDANI
By: RFI Follow
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It's a rather disconcerting
encore repetita
.
After the CAN in Cameroon, the sky fell again on Djamel Belmadi's
Algeria
, again eliminated in the first round of the
CAN
in Ivory Coast against Mauritania (1-0) Tuesday January 24.
Coach Djamel Belmadi, who allowed the Fennecs to win the title in 2019 in Egypt, is now in an ejection seat.
After the continental title, she failed to win any of her next six matches in the competition.
The coach and his group also experienced the terrible disillusionment of the play-off for the 2022 World Cup lost against Cameroon (1-0/1-2 ap), at the last second.
An end of cycle?
After this new fiasco, Algerian media wrote that the coach announced his resignation to his group in the locker room in Bouaké, after the match against the “Mourabitounes”.
The coach has neither confirmed nor denied anything.
“
When we go back to the country we will see
”, he only said about his future, ensuring that he “
takes full responsibility
” for these two consecutive eliminations.
In five and a half years the results are extremely mixed for the child from Champigny-sur-Marne (Val-de-Marne, France).
To the first question at the press conference, reminding him that he became the first Algerian coach eliminated twice in the first round, Belmadi replied dryly: “
You did not specify that I am the second to have won the Coupe d'Ivoire. Africa
", after Abdelhamid Kermali in 1990. The former Marseillais also underlined: "
When I arrived (in 2018) we were 14th nation in CAF and 60th in the Fifa rankings, today we are top 5 and between 28th and 30th place Fifa and with an African Cup in the bag
”.
Read alsoThe rankings of all CAN groups
So is Algeria reaching the end of the cycle?
“
Maybe, yes,
” Belmadi simply blurted out.
Only Baghdad Bounedjah, among the veterans, and to a lesser extent the goalkeeper Anthony Mandrea, among the new ones, were at the level of a nation among the outsiders of the competition.
The scorer in the 2019 final against Senegal (1-0) scored all three of his team's goals, and the Caen goalkeeper showed that he could take over from Raïs M'Bolhi.
But captain Riyad Mahrez was very disappointing.
On the bench for the third match after two ghostly games, he did not weigh on the match.
All is not lost for Algeria, who began their North American World Cup qualifying campaign with two wins in two matches with the same team transitioning between two generations.
But not sure that it will be Belmadi who finishes the job.
With
AFP
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