Football World Cup 2014 / Algeria

This article covers the Algerian national team at the 2014 World Cup . This was Algeria's fourth participation in a World Cup final after 1982, 1986 and 2010 and for the first time the round of 16 was reached, in which the eventual world champions Germany were only lost in extra time.

qualification

For the first continental qualifying round Algeria had a bye because of its world rankings . In the second round, Algeria faced the following opponents under their coach Vahid Halilhodžić in Group H :

rank	team	Gates	Points
1	Algeria	13: 04	15th
2	Mali	07: 07	08th
3	Benin	08: 09	08th
4th	Rwanda	03:11	02

Algeria	-	Mali	1: 0 and 1: 2
Algeria	-	Benin	3: 1 and 3: 1
Algeria	-	Rwanda	4-0 and 1-0

Then the Fennecs - "Desert Foxes" is the common name for the Algerian national players - had to play two more barrage games against the winner of qualification group E in order to qualify for the World Cup finals. They lost 3-2 in the first leg against Burkina Faso in Ouagadougou , but prevailed 1-0 at Blida's Stade Mustapha Tchaker at home and thus kept the better end to themselves due to the away goals rule .

Algeria's 16 goals were scored by Islam Slimani (5), Sofiane Feghouli , El Arbi Hillel Soudani (3 each), Saphir Taïder (2), Nabil Ghilas , Carl Medjani and Madjid Bougherra (1 each).

preparation

The Algerian team started the 2014 World Cup with a 2-0 win over Slovenia on March 5 in front of a home crowd. The goalscorers were El Arbi Hillel Soudani and Saphir Taider .

As part of a training camp in Switzerland, they first played a test match in Sion against Armenia on May 31 , which they finally defeated 3-1 (3-0). Here achieved Essaïd Belkalem , Nabil Ghilas and Islam Slimani the gates. It should also be noted that Riyad Mahrez made his debut while preparing two of the goals.

At the end of the preparation, a friendly match against Romania was played on June 4, 2014 in Geneva , which was won 2: 1 (1: 1). The goalscorers were Nabil Bentaleb and Soudani. A total of 17 players were used.

Squad

On May 12th, the preliminary roster with 30 players was named, which had to be reduced to 23 players and confirmed by FIFA. Eleven players were already in the 2010 World Cup squad when Algeria was eliminated in the preliminary round. Algeria was the only team to nominate all players from different clubs.

The players Nacereddine Khoualed , Ryad Boudebouz , Foued Kadir , Amir Karaoui and Rafik Djebbour were only nominated as reservists and did not travel to the training camp. Substitute goalkeeper Azzedine Doukha was sent home on May 27, while Adlène Guédioura , who played in the game against Armenia on May 31, 2014, was the last player to leave the camp on June 2.

With a total of seven appearances in two World Cup finals, Rafik Halliche is the Algerian World Cup record player. Previously, three players with a total of six appearances each held the record in the 1982 and 1986 finals.

No.	Surname	Club before the start of the World Cup	International matches *	Länderspiel- gates *	birthday	Games	Gates				World Cup participation	World Cup games (before 2014)	World Cup goals (before 2014)
goalkeeper
23	Raïs M'Bolhi	CSKA Sofia	28	0	April 25, 1986	4th	0	0	0	0	2010	2	0
01	Cédric Si Mohamed	CS Constantine	01	0	January 9, 1985	0	0	0	0	0
16	Mohamed Lamine Zemmamouche	USM Algiers M	07th	0	March 19, 1985	0	0	0	0	0
Defender
04th	Essaïd Belkalem	Watford FC *	13	1	January 1, 1989	3	0	0	0	0
02	Madjid Bougherra	Lekhwiya M	62	4th	October 7, 1982	3	0	1	0	0	2010	3	0
17th	Liassine Cadamuro-Bentaïba	RCD Mallorca *	07th	0	March 5, 1988	0	0	1	0	0
03	Faouzi Ghoulam	SSC Naples P	06th	0	February 1, 1991	3	0	0	0	0
05	Rafik Halliche	Académica de Coimbra	29	1	2nd September 1986	4th	1	1	0	0	2010	3	0
20th	Aïssa Mandi	Stade Reims	02	0	October 22, 1991	3	0	0	0	0
12	Carl Medjani	Valenciennes FC A	26th	1	May 15, 1985	3	0	0	0	0	2010	0	0
06th	Djamel Mesbah	AS Livorno A	26th	0	October 9, 1984	2	0	1	0	0	2010	1	0
midfield player
14th	Nabil Bentaleb	Tottenham Hotspur	03	1	November 24, 1994	3	0	1	0	0
11	Yacine Brahimi	Granada CF.	06th	0	February 8, 1990	3	1	0	0	0
08th	Medhi Lacen	Getafe CF.	30th	0	March 15, 1984	3	0	0	0	0	2010	3	0
22nd	Mehdi Mostefa	AC Ajaccio A	23	0	August 30, 1983	2	0	0	0	0
19th	Sapphire Taïder	Inter Milan	11	3	February 29, 1992	2	0	0	0	0
07th	Hassan Yebda	Udinese Calcio	25th	2	May 14, 1984	1	0	0	0	0	2010	3	0
striker
18th	Abdelmoumene Djabou	Club Africain	08th	1	January 31, 1987	3	2	0	0	0
10	Sofiane Feghouli	Valencia CF	19th	5	December 26, 1989	4th	1	0	0	0
09	Nabil Ghilas	FC Porto	05	2	April 20, 1990	3	0	0	0	0
21st	Riyad Mahrez	Leicester City M2	02	0	February 21, 1991	1	0	0	0	0
13	Islam Slimani	Sporting Lisbon	20th	10	June 18, 1988	4th	2	0	0	0
15th	El Arbi Hillel Soudani	Dinamo Zagreb M.	22nd	11	November 25, 1987	3	0	0	0	0

(*) only the games and goals that were played or scored before the start of the World Cup including the friendly against Romania are given.

1. ↑ M = The club was champion of its country in the 2013/14 season, M2 = The club was champion of the second highest league in its country in the 2013/14 season and will play in the top division in the next season, A = The club got out from the highest league in the country, P = The club won the cup in the 2013/14 season, * = The club plays in the second highest league in its country.

Games at the World Cup finals

Preliminary round

Belo Horizonte Porto Alegre Curitiba Sorocaba

Preliminary round venues (red), preliminary round and round of 16 venues (green) and quarters (blue)

Pl.	country	Sp.	S.	U	N	Gates	Diff.	Points
1.	Belgium	3	3	0	0	004: 100	+3	09
2.	Algeria	3	1	1	1	006: 500	+1	04th
3.	Russia	3	0	2	1	002: 300	−1	02
4th	South Korea	3	0	1	2	003: 600	−3	01

At the World Cup finals in Brazil , the following encounters initially took place in group H:

• Tuesday, June 17, 2014, 1:00 p.m. (6:00 p.m. CEST) in Belo Horizonte Belgium - Algeria 2: 1 (0: 1)
  
• Sun., June 22, 2014, 4 p.m. (9 p.m. CEST) in ( Porto Alegre , Estádio Beira-Rio ) South Korea - Algeria 2: 4 (0: 3)
  
• June 27, 2014, 10:00 p.m. CEST ( Curitiba , Arena da Baixada ): Algeria - Russia 1: 1 (0: 1)

Algeria's record against these opponents is not very meaningful, especially since there had been no competitive games at continental tournaments until the World Cup. At the beginning of the 21st century there was one draw and one defeat against Belgium, and one victory and two defeats against South Korea between 1969 and 1985; The Fennecs had never played against the Russians before, but there was a draw and a defeat against their predecessor, the USSR, in 1964.

The team's quarters were the Hotel Pitangueiras in Sorocaba .

Knockout round

Round of 16

Mon., June 30, 2014, 5:00 p.m. (10:00 p.m. CEST) in ( Porto Alegre , Estádio Beira-Rio ) Germany - Algeria 2: 1 a.d. (0: 0, 0: 0)
 

Before that, there were two games against Germany, both of which were won - the last time in the preliminary round of the World Cup in 1982 with 2-1.

Sports impact

In the FIFA world rankings , Algeria fell two places from 20th to 18th, but initially remained the best African team.

Notes and individual references

1. ↑ Match report
2. ↑ fifa.com: “Taider and Feghouli lead Algeria's World Cup squad” ( Memento of the original from May 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ The player received a yellow card on the bench after knocking away a ball that had gone out of bounds.
4. ↑ Release List of Players ( English , PDF) FIFA. May 16, 2014. Retrieved April 14, 2019.
5. ↑ fifa.com: team quarters
6. ↑ World champion fifa.com: "Germany takes over the top position"

Web links

• The national team on the side of the Algerian association (French)