Lifts Algerian National Team The winning slogan, and nothing else, when it faces a difficult confrontation against the Ivory Coast, this evening, Thursday, January 20, in the matches of the final round for the fifth group of matches Africa Cup of Nations The football tournament, which is hosted by Cameroon and runs until February 6th.
The “Desert Warriors” enters the confrontation with one point, and is in the last place on the list of the general standings of the teams, after it drew 0-0 against Sierra Leone, and lost against Equatorial Guinea 1-0, to stop an impressive series of 35 matches without defeat, which had started in October / October.
and tops Cote d’Ivoire national team. The group with 4 points, ahead of Equatorial Guinea by one point, while Sierra Leone is in third place with two points. Today, the teams of Equatorial Guinea and Sierra Leone will also face each other, and both eyes are waiting for the full points of the confrontation.
Algeria pays the price for missed opportunities in the first two matches
The Algerian national team, crowned with the Arab Cup, paid in the first two matches the price of missed opportunities, especially in the opening draw against Sierra Leone, and hopes that the attacking line, led by Manchester City player Riyad Mahrez, Youssef Blaili, Baghdad Bounedjah, Yassin Ibrahimi and others, will rise to the level of aspirations to overcome the obstacle of a champion. Africa twice (1992 and 2015).
And coach Djamel Belmadi’s men will be required to beat the Ivory Coast national team and its strong attack led by Ajax Amsterdam star, Sebastian Haller, and the English players of Crystal Palace and Arsenal, Wilfried Zaha and Nicolas Pepe.
Confronting the dissolution of the partnership between Algeria and Côte d’Ivoire in the history of “Alcan”
Away from the calculations of qualifying for the second round, today’s confrontation between Algeria and Côte d’Ivoire has a special character, from a historical point of view, as the two sides seek to break up the partnership regarding the confrontations that brought them together in the history of the African Nations Cup.
Algeria and Côte d’Ivoire meet today for the ninth time in the history of “Alcan”, and before that they met in 8 matches, 5 of them in the group stage and the rest in the quarter-finals, in which each team won three and drew in two, during which the “warriors” offensive line scored 11 goals against 15 goals for the Elephants team.
The first match between the two teams was in the 1968 tournament in Ethiopia, in Algeria’s first participation in the continental championship, and it ended with a 3-0 defeat, and they met again after 20 years in the 1988 Morocco tournament, and the match ended with a 1-1 draw, and in the 1990 Algeria tournament, “The Greens” won 3-0. In the first round. The Ivorians responded with the same result during the 1992 tournament in Senegal.
After 18 years, the confrontation between Algeria and Côte d’Ivoire was renewed during the quarter-finals in Angola 2010, and Algeria won the match 3-2, after a dramatic scenario, which witnessed the progress of the “elephants” twice, before the colleagues of the former leader Majid Bougherra ended the match for their benefit in time instead of the lost.
The two teams met again in the 2013 South African tournament, in the first round, as the confrontation between them ended in a 2-2 draw, in the third round in a formal meeting, after the colleagues of the former player Didier Drogba ensured qualification for the quarter-finals with two victories over Togo and Tunisia, while the “Greens” lost At the hands of the same two teams to leave the tournament early.
The date was renewed in Equatorial Guinea 2015, when Algeria and Côte d’Ivoire met in the quarter-finals, and the match ended with the victory of “The Elephants” 3-1, before the “Greens” took revenge in the Egypt 2019 tournament, which saw them crowned the continental title, and Riyad Mahrez’s colleagues won in the quarter-finals The final was a penalty shootout 4-3, after the match ended in its official and extra time with a 1-1 draw.
Riyad Mahrez: I hope we can stay longer in Cameroon
“We do a lot of good things, we create a lot of chances, but we lack effectiveness,” said Riyad Mahrez, during the press conference held yesterday, Wednesday, January 19. We win.. I really think we will qualify, and I assure you we will give everything we have. I am optimistic and hopefully we can stay longer in Cameroon.”
Djamel Belmadi: Algeria is in a state of emergency
Algeria coach Djamel Belmadi said that his country is “in a state of emergency” and responded to the critics by saying: “In the first two matches you talked about strange and unorganized Algeria, I do not agree with you at all. We conceded one goal and it was from a set-piece. We will show our mental potential, God willing.”
