after six years on the bench, a continental title and two fiascos, Algeria turns the page Djamel Belmadi

His departure was expected, it is now official. Algeria parted ways, Wednesday, January 25, with its coach Djamel Belmadi the day after a pitiful elimination of the Fennecs in the first round of the African Cup of Nations (CAN), for the second edition in a row. The defeat Tuesday evening in Ivory Coast against modest Mauritania (1-0) sealed the fate of Belmadi, who has not won a single match at the CAN since the 2019 coronation.

After this new fiasco, Algerian media claimed that the coach had announced his resignation to his group in the locker room in Bouaké on Tuesday evening. The coach had neither confirmed nor denied anything. “When we go back to town we’ll see”he had only blurted out about his future, assuring that he “assume(s) entirely” these two consecutive eliminations. The expected verdict did not take long to arrive.

Nicknamed the “Minister of Happiness”

“I met with national coach Djamel Belmadi to discuss the implications of this bitter elimination, and we reached a friendly agreement to end our relationship and terminate the coach’s contract with the Algerian Football Federation.”announced Wednesday late afternoon the boss of the Algerian Football Federation (FAF), Walid Sadi, on his X account (formerly Twitter).

Djamel Belmadi, 47, took charge of the “Greens” in August 2018. He was praised after taking Algeria to the top of African football by winning the CAN in 2019 in Egypt, a coronation which earned him the nickname of “minister of happiness” by the Algerians. But its star began to fade after Algeria’s early elimination from CAN 2022 and then its failure to qualify for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Since then, a number of analysts had questioned his choices and he was the target of a vast campaign on social networks and in certain media which called for his departure.