The earliy predictions have been proven right. As was expected, England and The USA have qualified from Group C. Algeria and Slovenia have to go home. Algeria and Slovenia fought hard to try and get through and the suspense lasted until the 92nd minute of the last match, until the USA scored the only goal of the match. Slovenia missed out on qualification by a whisker.

Going into the last match, Algeria had to win by a two-goal margin to qualify. That was a big ask for a team that had scored only one goal ( a penalty) in their last 5 matches. So Algeria left the World Cup without scoring a single goal.

In the Green Point Stadium in South Africa, Algeria created an upset by drawing against England. Before the England-Algeria game, all the punters, football commentators and observers were portraying Algeria as a sacrificial lamb. Even Wayne Rooney had gone on record a couple of times in the press saying that Algeria will be wiped out. But Saadane and his boys had other ideas.

Yesterday, Algeria, who had spent twenty four years without World Cup participation, gave England a run for their money. They surprised England with their ability to keep possession of the ball, defend with discipline and attack with pace and flair. Technically the Algerian players appeared at ease and matched or, at times, were even superior to their English counterparts.

The Algeria-Slovenia match was a non event until Chaouchi made the blunder that sank his team.

Algeria missed their first outing against arguably the weakest team in the group. It looked as if both teams were quite content to get a draw, but Ghezzal and Chaouchi decided otherwise.

It was third time lucky for Algeria. They finally managed a win over the UAE, albeit by a miserly penalty scored by Karim Ziani in the second half following Sbait Khater’s handling of the ball in the box. It was an unconvincing win, but a win nonetheless that will spur Algeria on to look forward to putting on a good show in the World Cup finals.

In their first group match against Slovenia on June 13th, the Algerians will have to play a lot better than they did in their match against the UAE to have any hope of reaping something out of that match.