CAN 2022 – Media show but sad entry into the running: The invincible Algeria and Belmadi already under pressure

Inoffensive in the first game, despite its armada commanded by Riyad Mahrez, Algeria started “immediately in a difficulty that we could have escaped“, regrets Belmadi. But the coach wants his team to rely on his certainties. Against Sierra Leone, “we have favorite statistics“, he insists.

And Algeria pursues an additional objective, which must carry it. With a running streak of 35 unbeaten matches, “we are getting closer to the world record held by Italy, which is 37 matches“, he recalls. Barring a big surprise against Equatorial Guinea, the Greens will try to equal the “Nazionale” against Côte d’Ivoire, in the third group match, then to beat them in the round of 16. This series “shows consistency, three years undefeated, it’s a good thing for the history of Algerian football to see our flag so high, but it’s not something we think about before each match“, insists Belmadi.

An attack to refine

This record in sight, “it doesn’t put any pressure on us, assure Youcef Atal, on the contrary, it gives us additional motivation“. “If a draw becomes a failure for us, so much the better, it means that we have become strong“, further notes Belmadi.

The African champions boss also defends his attackers, under criticism, admitting “ask them a lot“, for he wants them”prevent the first easy raises, to press“. “It takes energy, he admits, they can lose a little lucidity, maybe it’s a little my fault“But if the “Fennecs” “continue to score goals and that my leading striker (Islam Slimani, Editor’s note) doesn’t score, but he does the job I ask of him, I know he won’t be fully satisfied, but I will be satisfied. The most important thing is that we score goals“.

In short, Belmadi always ensures the media spectacle, in a pre-match press conference which lasted almost an hour, mixing French and Arabic, often in the middle of the same sentence. After the defeat against Sierra Leone, he scrapped with a journalist over a question about the playing conditions, about the heat at 2 p.m. and the humidity.

“I didn’t insist, I said we had to deal with it“, launched Belmadi, recalling that even if it means making comparisons, “at this time of the year it is very cold in Algeria“. “You are a journalist, not a meteorologist“, he concluded, making the room laugh. This strong personality also explained that “sometimes the words go beyond my thoughts“when he blames his players,”but they know that i love them“.

Belmadi made less of a show on Saturday than after the draw against Sierra Leone, even if he still made the room smile by greeting a journalist capable of translating a question into Spanish for him. But if the invincibility lasts, we will see Belmadi on stage again…