That they won the 1990 African Cup of Nations and are the ancestral home of Zinedine Zidane is the closest the nation has been to pure footballing glory and fame. You wouldn’t exactly be excited by the name of Algeria. It’s an African country lingering in footballing anonymity. Apart from a few decent stars playing in Europe, who unfortunately, are not part of any conversations pertaining to ‘footballers with quality’, the term ‘Algerian football’ persists in the dark.
Things are changing though. The man behind that change is Vahid Halilhodzic.
Vahid halilhodzic needs a bit of introduction, but for now, all anyone needs to know is, the man is revered by fans of Lille,PSG, Dinamo Zagreb for his time there. The tactically disciplined and attacking teams he cultivated there serve as the primary catalyst for that. He has done the same with the Algerian national side. Now, if you watched Algeria in 2010 World Cup, all you’ll have seen is a side who played a rather one dimensional-physical game and you will question the sanity of the point that this side can play it right, and believe it when I say things are starkly different this time in Brazil.
Halilhodzic took over in 2011 and went about restructuring the Algerian team. The side is built as a highly organized and a disciplined 4-3-3, and not exactly the fluid one the enthusiasts so love to rave about. Here the players keep their positions when they are not in possession, but break forward with lethal, efficient movement on the counter and mind you, they have players capable of that. Walter Mazzari’s Napoli is a rather inaccurate analogy, but there is some similarity in their ways. Halilhodzic wants a level of rigidity in defending, but loves some flexibility in attack.