Manchester City playmaker Riyad Mahrez tops Algeria’s squad, defending champions, in the African Nations Cup finals in Cameroon next month.
Today, Friday, coach Jamal Belmadi announced a squad of 28 players, including some recent Arab Cup winners, such as Elias Shetty, Mohamed Amin Togai, Sofiane Ben Dabka and Yassin Brahimi, the best player in the tournament in Qatar.
Algeria is competing in Group E along with Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea and Sierra Leone.
The list did not witness any surprises, with the exception of the exclusion of Hicham Boudawi and Ahmed Touba, although they regularly joined the squad in the recent period.
Boudaoui, the French player of Nice, did not participate much in the last period due to injury, and Rachid Ghazal, a player from Turkey’s Besiktas, was excluded. On the other hand, Adam Ounass, a player from Napoli, was excluded.
Algeria is expected to play friendly matches against Gambia and Ghana before traveling to Cameroon.
The lineup was as follows:
Goalkeepers: Rais Mbolhi – Mostafa Zaghba – Alexandre Okija.
Defenders: Issa Mandi – Abdel Qader Badran – Mahdi Tahrat – Jamal bin Al Omari – Muhammad Amin Togai – Youssef Attal – Hussein bin Ayada – Reda Halaymeh – Rami bin Sabaini – Elias Sheti.
Midfielders: Ramiz Zerrouqi – Harris Bekbella – Sufian Bin Dabka – Adam Zerkan – Sofiane Feghouli – Ismail bin Nasser.
Attackers: Riyad Mahrez – Adam Ounass – Youssef Blaili – Saeed bin Rahma – Farid Wilayat – Yassin Brahimi – Islam Slimani – Baghdad Bounedjah – Mohamed Al-Amin Amora.
