Portal:Football in Africa

The Algeria national football team (Arabic: منتخب الْجَزَائِر لِكُرَّةُ الْقَدَم) represents Algeria in men's international football, and is governed by the Algerian Football Federation. The team plays their home matches at the 5 July Stadium in Algiers and Miloud Hadefi Stadium in Oran. Algeria joined FIFA on 1 January 1964, a year and a half after gaining independence. They are the current champions of the FIFA Arab Cup.

The North African team has qualified for four World Cups in 1982, 1986, 2010 and 2014. Algeria has won the Africa Cup of Nations twice, once in 1990, when they hosted the tournament, and again in Egypt in 2019. They were also champions of the 2021 FIFA Arab Cup, the 1991 Afro-Asian Cup of Nations, the men's football tournament of the 1978 All-Africa Games and the men's football tournament of the 1975 Mediterranean Games.

The traditional rivals of Algeria are mainly: Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia. Algeria has also had very competitive matches against Nigeria, especially in the 1980s during Algeria's best football generation, against Mali due to sharing a common border and a long-standing competitive rivalry, and against Senegal, where Algeria's first global success began. For the Algerians, their biggest victory on the world stage was their 2–1 win against West Germany during the 1982 FIFA World Cup in which the African nation shocked the world. Algeria has produced many talented players throughout its history and is considered one of the best teams in African football history. At the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Algeria became the first African team to score at least four goals in a match at a World Cup, which was against South Korea.

Song with Cameroon in 2008

Rigobert Song Bahanag (born 1 July 1976) is a Cameroonian former professional footballer who was most recently the manager of the Cameroon national team.

Known for his defensive skills, Song usually played as a centre-back, but could also operate at right-back. Internationally, he played at a record eight Africa Cup of Nations tournaments and served as captain in five (the ones he was not captain for were South Africa 1996, Burkina Faso 1998 and Angola 2010), a record, and holds the record of most consecutive games played in the tournament with 35 first team games. He has won two CAF Africa Cup of Nations titles in 2000 and 2002. In 2009, Song was dropped as Cameroon skipper by new coach Paul Le Guen, who eventually appointed Samuel Eto'o as the new captain, which later caused concerns, as Song had never been on the bench in more than eleven years for Cameroon. With 137 appearances, Song also holds the record of the most capped player in the history of the Cameroon national team and has played in four World Cups, in 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2010.

Song started his professional career with Metz and helped the club to win the Coupe de la Ligue in 1996. After appearing at the 1998 World Cup, he joined Salernitana, newly promoted to the top-flight Italian Serie A. In January 1999, he left Italy to start successive stints with Liverpool, West Ham United and 1. FC Köln, but after failing to hold down a first-team place, he returned to France to play for Lens. He stayed there until 2004, before moving on to Turkey, where he spent four years with Galatasaray, winning two Süper Lig titles and the Turkish Cup. Song then signed a contract with Trabzonspor in 2008, where he won another Turkish Cup and stayed until 2010.