A defeat is hard to digest. Beaten by Nigeria this Saturday in the quarter-finals, Algeria left the 2025 African Cup of Nations through the back door. Dominated in all areas of the game, the Fennecs missed out on their meeting, far from the beautiful image shown in the group stage.
But if this setback against Victor Osimhen’s Super Eagles does not go down well with the Algerian players, it is mainly because they feel wronged by the arbitration. At issue: a situation that occurred at the start of the match, when Issa Sy, the Senegalese official in charge of the game, chose not to designate the penalty point following a rather obvious handball from Junior Ajayi in the penalty area in the 12th minute. The man with the whistle was not even invited to review the images by the VAR.
The referee heckled to his locker room
A decision not at all understood by Vladimir Petkovic’s men, very upset at the end of the game. Determined to express their frustration to the refereeing body, several players and members of the staff of the Greens were very vehement once the final whistle was blown, even forcing the security agents to create a cordon around Mr. Sy and his assistants to allow them to leave the pitch of the Grand Stade de Marrakech, while a general scuffle broke out between the 22 players, including Luca Zidane in a rage.
But the incidents did not stop there and the tension did not decrease in the corridors. According to several Moroccan media present on site, the Algerians chased the referee to the entrance to his locker room.
A video captured by the independent media Daily24.ma shows a chaotic scene in which the refereeing trio is heckled by several members of the Fennecs technical staff and by the right side Rafik Belghali, visibly very angry.
“I hate talking about refereeing but…”
Calm ended up returning a few moments later, without the bitterness leaving the mouths of the Algerians, still disappointed in the mixed zone. “I hate to talk about refereeing after a defeat but… it’s true that there were penalties for us in the first half, then lots of fouls and cards not called,” captain Riyad Mahrez whispered to the press.
“Everyone saw (the Nigerian hand). That’s not why we lost. But the referee took out cards very easily whereas when it was us (the victims of mistakes), it does not come out. These are small details, the high level is played on small details. It’s football,” he regretted, along the same lines as Aïssa Mandi.
“All I have to say is that Nigeria doesn’t need that,” implied the Lille central defender. “It’s a great team, which is maturing, with great players. They didn’t need that to be good, to perform, they showed it throughout the CAN. It’s true that it’s a bit of a shame. »
“It’s a whole. The referee must whistle, in the first half, the center of Farès (Chaïbi) where there is clearly a hand in the area,” regretted, for his part, Rayan Aït-Nouri. “There are a lot of fouls that he doesn’t call. It sure is frustrating. »
