Djamel Belmadi: "Winning the AFCON didn't please everyone in Algeria"

Djamel Belmadi is not known for mincing his words. Once again, the Algeria coach stayed true to his principles. With RMC's flagship show "l'After Foot" setting up in Algiers for a special programme on Algerian football, the 47-year-old was the guest of honour. It gave him the chance to talk about his five years in charge of the national team, the challenges ahead, and the pressure on his shoulders as coach. In the view of the former midfielder, criticism is necessary to force self-examination, but some attacks on him have become constant.

Read more: Algeria: "Who is responsible?" Belmadi hits out again over Sidi Moussa

"I don't think this pressure is popular. I've been here five years. There was a before, a during and an after AFCON 2019, when we won it, " he said, before going on: "And it still didn't please some people, and I'm not talking about the public. " It was a thinly veiled message aimed at certain figures in Algerian football. The latest example is the row over the state of the Sidi Moussa technical centre, which forced the Greens' training camp to be moved ahead of their AFCON 2023 qualifier against Tanzania. Belmadi had initially even wanted the team to prepare in Tunisia, before the Sports Ministry stepped in and ultimately chose the city of Annaba.

"Some people deliberately refuse to understand"

As an example, Belmadi pointed to the criticism received after the draw with Tanzania, with his detractors accusing him of making too many changes. "We'd won five out of five, and I fielded an almost U23 side with new faces, players discovering international football. There was only one 2019 champion (Aïssa Mandi); everyone else was a newly capped player. Obviously, when you play with a lot of young players making their debuts, who have only worked together for two days before a match, you can't win everything, " he defended himself. "If I'd played the usual players, I like to think we could have won that game, but I'd have learned nothing. And when do we bring these players in? Some people deliberately refuse to understand."

Djamel Belmadi has clearly identified his critics and understands he will have to live with them for as long as he remains Algeria coach. "I'm not talking about the public but about certain football pundits, not all of them. But it runs off me. Seeing the players and the team develop, that's my job. The rest is secondary; we do the work, we have to be cooperative but no more than that. But it doesn't keep me awake at night," he concluded. With Algeria set to face Senegal on Tuesday in a friendly, a top billing between the last two African champions, he knows he is already under scrutiny and that, if the result goes against them, his critics will not hold back from attacking him again.

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