Algeria Preliminary 25-Man 2010 World Cup Roster Announced
Today May 11th marks a significant date for 32 nations across the globe—most especially the one that resides at the southern tip on the continent of Africa.
One month or 30 days from today, South Africa will kick off the grandest sporting spectacle of the calendar year as the host nation will play Mexico in the first game of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
As such, national team coaches and federations are at a fever pitch trying to whittle down their pool of players until the final June 1st date when all team must have selected and submitted their final 23-man World Cup roster.
With significant international friendly matches on the horizon, most teams have gone through the initial phase of selecting a group of players to come in for national team training camps, and have named 30-man rosters for those May games.
Like the rest of its five African counterparts, Algeria had a huge leg up on the rest of the teams entering the upcoming World Cup. With the 2010 African Cup of Nations tournament having been played this past January in Angola, Algeria along with Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, and South Africa each had a major preliminary tournament to evaluate what type of squad they would have pre-World Cup.
Not needing to beat around the bush Rabah Saadane—the only man to have coached Algeria in the World Cup having done so previously in both 1982 and 1986—announced his preliminary 25-man roster a week ago on May 4th.
Predictably the crew of players selected featured most of the cast of characters that helped Les Fennecs pick up fourth place in Angola. Fifteen of the 25 remain from the African Cup of Nations, including the entire starting 11 that helped Algeria knock off Ivory Coast in the quarterfinals, and featured throughout most of the tournament. Yazid Mansouri will wear the armband as captain of Les Fennecs.
Those players will compete in a two-week long training camp from May 13th to May 27th in Switzerland before their international friendly in Dublin May 28th vs. Ireland—the only friendly match Les Fennecs will have before the June 1st cut-down date when the 23-man World Cup roster is due. The squad has one more announced friendly with the United Arab Emirates in Germany on June 5th.
Two of the real interesting subplots of the Algerian squad; several Desert Fox players are teammates of U.S. players for their club teams, and to be perfectly honest the Algerian roster looks a lot like the American roster in terms of where the players were selected from, and the injury questions about how match fit several of the top Algerian players will come the World Cup.
Madjid Bougherra, who plays for Scottish side Rangers, was teammates with U.S. players Maurice Edu and DaMarcus Beasley. However, Beasley will not be back at Rangers next season and it appears neither will the 27-year-old, who has drawn interest from several bigger clubs in Europe including Liverpool and Borussia. As one of the real Algerian stars, with an impressive display at 2010 South Africa, Bougherra will likely move on.
Other ties include Riad Boudebouz, who played shortly alongside Charlie Davies at French Lique 1 side Sochaux and Karim Matmour, who plays with U.S. catalyst Michael Bradley at the German Bundesliga club Borussia Moenchengladbach.
Like the U.S., Algeria feature a predominantly European flavor when it comes to their roster, just four players from the Algerian domestic league, three keepers and one defender—Abdelkader Laifaoui, Fawzi Chaouchi, Lounes Gaouaoui, and Mohamed Zemamouche. Not surprisingly with the common link to France—think Zinedine Zidane and Karim Benzema both born of Algerian immigrants in France—seven of the 25 rostered Algerian players play in France. Another four play in Britain and the rest come abroad from Bulgaria to Portugal to Italy, Germany, Spain, and Greece.
What coach Saadane will have to keep a weary eye on is how several of his key players are recovering from lengthy stays on the bench at their domestic clubs due to injury.
Most notably and perhaps Algeria’s best player, Karim Ziani had a nearly two-month spell on the bench for Wolfsburg after the Cup of Nations. He must be healthy for the Desert Foxes to make any noise as the team looks to him in the central midfield role to score and set-up its offense.
Bougherra also has had his injury problems for Rangers suffering a calf strain and a thigh problem that has kept him out of action since April 18th. He too will be heavily relied upon to lock down the center of defense.
And lastly Nadir Belhadj, another key member of the defense, has missed prominent time with Portsmouth thanks to a hamstring problem.
There is a difference from being healthy and being match fit, but all three of those players played big minutes and big roles for Algeria in Angola in January, and any one of them would be a major blow if they could not go in South Africa.
Here is the official roster and the * denotes new players that did not play in the African Cup of Nations:
Goalkeepers: Fawzi Chaouchi (ES Setif), *Lounes Gaouaoui (ASO Chlef), M'bohi *Rais Ouhed (Slava Sofia, Bulgaria), Mohamed Liamine Zemamouche (MC Alger)
Defenders: *Habib Belaid (Boulogne, France), Nadir Belhadj (Portsmouth, England), Madjid Bougherra (Glasgow Rangers, Scotland), Rafik Halliche (Nacional Madeira, Portugal), Abdelkader Laifaoui (ES Setif), *Carl Medjani (AC Ajaccio, France), *Djamel Mesbah (Lecce, Italy) Anther Yahia (Bochum, Germany)
Midfielders: Djamel Abdoun (Nantes, France), *Riad Boudebouz (Sochaux, France), *Adlane Guedioura (Wolverhampton, England), *Fouad Kadir (Valenciennes, France), *Medhi Lacen (Racing Santander, Spain), Yazid Mansouri (Lorient, France), Karim Matmour (Moenchengladbach, Germany), Mourad Meghni (Lazio, Italy), Hassen Yebda (Portsmouth, England), Karim Ziani (Wolfsburg, Germany)
Forwards: *Rafik Djebbour (AEK Athens, Greece), Abdelkader Ghezzal (Siena, Italy), Rafik Saifi (Istres, France)