Defeat and Disillusionment: Outclassed and Bitter, Algeria Crashes Out in Berkane
The Algerian military regime had billed it as a “geopolitical victory” in the making — a symbolic triumph on the pitch, to make up for its diplomatic shortcomings. Instead, Algeria’s women’s national team bowed out of the 2024 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations in the quarter-finals, knocked out by Ghana after a barren, lifeless 120 minutes and a 4-2 loss on penalties.
From the moment they arrived in Morocco, the Algerian delegation made headlines for all the wrong reasons. First came their refusal to board a Royal Air Maroc flight. Then a clumsy attempt to erase the host country’s name from official tournament posters. At press conferences, they pointedly covered the logo of the tournament’s main sponsor — Royal Air Maroc again. They even protested the accreditation badges that read “Morocco 2024.”
It was the kind of petty, predictable behavior one might expect from a meeting of Algeria’s top brass. You’d almost think they came not to play football, but to redraw the Maghreb’s borders using sticker labels.
With no trophy to take home, Algiers might find consolation in its gold medal for institutional victimhood. Even in defeat, the delegation managed to sprinkle in a few familiar conspiracy theories — blaming “refereeing bias,” a “hostile atmosphere,” and other classics from the regime’s well-worn paranoia playbook.
The lesson? In trying so hard to erase Morocco’s name, Algeria has ended up wiping away its own mark on football history.
Translated from french text by Abderrazzak BOUSSAID /Le7tv
