Algeria the most surprising teams in 2014 WC

Algeria were one of the surprising packages at World Cup 2014 and they are seemingly on the way to build on the success under the new management of Christian Gourcuff.

The iconic Frenchman was appointed as the new manager of Algeria after the World Cup. He has already revealed his ambition of getting Algeria successful in the Africa Cup of Nations. The tournament starts on January 20 for the Algerians. Their opening match is against South Africa while they also have tough encounters against Ghana and Senegal. Ghana and South Africa are seen as the major competitors for Algerians in the race for the top two finishers.

Only the top two in the group will qualify to the next round. Due to the difficult nature of the group, it has been expected that Algeria will be in a position to qualify even with more than two victories. Gourcuff, though, has set an ambitious target of winning all the group matches and progressing to the next round as the winners of the group. Algeria failed to get past the group stage in the 2013 edition, but the impressive performances at the World Cup clearly shows that the team is much better than during the darker days.

“Although our team is involved in a group of group of death, our ambition is to win all our games, although we know we will face strong teams. We will try to win our first game against South Africa, and the second (against Ghana) and so on.We are aware that we may suffer face these opponents, as was the case against Mali in phase qualification,” saidGourcuff. Algeria will be involved in a friendly with Tunisia just before the start of the tournament.Gourcuff will be hoping to use this match to recover from the 2-0 defeat against Mali.