This morning, Algeria lost 0-1 to Mauritania in the third round of the group stage of the Africa Cup of Nations, and finally accumulated 2 points in the final three rounds of the group stage, 2 draws and 1 loss, and bid farewell to this Africa Cup of Nations at the bottom of the group. Embarrassingly, Algeria, ranked 30th in the world, drew with Angola ranked only 117th in the world and Burkina Faso, ranked 57th in the world. In this round of do-or-die matches, Algeria lost to Mauritania, who had not tasted victory in the Africa Cup of Nations, who were ranked 105th in the world and had only played in the Africa Cup of Nations twice, and this match became the first victory in the history of the African Cup of Nations.
As the winner of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations, the Algerian team once maintained an impressive record of 26 games unbeaten from 2019 to 2022, but with the arrival of the 2022 Africa Cup of Nations, Algeria's collapse really came. Algeria entered the tournament as defending champions in a group with Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea and Ivory Coast, and would have faced an opponent ranked 100 below them in the world in their opening game. In the next two games, Algeria lost 0-1 to Equatorial Guinea and 1-3 to Ivory Coast, and finished bottom of the group.
In the subsequent World Cup qualifying play-offs, Algeria took the lead 1-0 in the first leg, Algeria returned to the home stadium and was scored by Cameroon in regular time, and after entering extra time, Touba's goal in the 117th minute had made Algeria infinitely close to the Qatar World Cup, but Cameroon completed the equalizer in the 124th minute of extra time, and finally reversed and advanced to the World Cup by virtue of the away goal advantage. This also means that the Algerian team has missed two consecutive World Cup matches and finished bottom of the group stage of two consecutive Africa Cup of Nations.
Opening the list of players of the Algerian team, we will be surprised to find that the Algerian team's squad is extremely luxurious, with stars such as former Manchester City striker Mahrez, AC Milan midfielder Bennacer, and Borussia Dortmund fullback Bensebaini, Algeria has also naturalized six players with the starting level of the five major leagues after 2023 to improve their strength, including Wolves' Ait Nouri (28 million euros), Rennes' Guiri (28 million euros), Eintracht Frankfurt's Scheybi (€15 million), Roma's Avar (€13 million), Sheffield United's Larouge (€3 million) and Metz's Van den Kerkhoff (€3 million). However, in the end, it only ended in exchange for a dismal exit from the Africa Cup of Nations.
Just yesterday, the national football team with 2 points with Algeria also officially bid farewell to the Asian Cup, a series of methods such as changing coaches, reform, and naturalization have been widely discussed by fans, among which naturalizing high-level players has become the fastest way to improve the strength of the national football team in a short period of time, but if we take the Algerian team as a reference, maybe naturalization is not the most correct path. High-level players and even stars in the top five leagues can't help Algeria get out of the doldrums, so who can we expect? Is it Wu Xiaohai of the American Professional League, Fitz-Tianle who is struggling in the Eredivisie, or Manchester United's abandoned Zhong Tahi? What do you think?