The FLN linked African football to anti-colonial resistance using the idea of Pan-Africanism as a legitimizing tool and symbol of national identity.

Algeria caused one of the great World Cup upsets on the first day of the tournament with a 2–1 victory over current European champions West Germany.

In the final against Nigeria, in front of 105,302 fans in the same stadium, Chérif Oudjani, in the 38th minute, enabled Algeria to win the African Cup of Nations for the first time.

However, with Algeria being on the brink of a civil war in the early 90s, social and political unrest started having a negative impact in every domain in the country including football.

In the 1994 African Cup of Nations Algeria was disqualified from the tournament after fielding an ineligible player, and many fans back home strongly criticized the staff of the team, accusing them of being irresponsible and unprofessional.

The loss against their North African neighbors was heartbreaking, and after that game, Algeria failed to qualify for the following two Africa Cup of Nations in 2006 and 2008 and nothing seemed to be working for Algerian football.

Algeria then again beat Zambia at home in Blida 1–0 followed by a 3–1 win against Rwanda, the Algerians ensured that the qualification for the World Cup would go down to the wire with a final encounter against Egypt in Cairo, where only a loss by three goals would stop the Fennecs from going to South Africa.

The attack prior to the game left the Algerian players in shock which resulted in a 2–0 loss in a controversial situation, conceding a goal just within a couple seconds from the final whistle.

The loss would mean that the two north African sides would have a to play a playoff game in Sudan with the winner qualifying to the world cup in South Africa.

Next Algeria faced Egypt in the semi-finals, tensions were still high between the two nations after the World Cup qualification play-off incident and fans from both sides felt it was a must win game for them.

After waves of controversial decisions from the referee for both sides, Algeria ended the game with 3 red cards which led to Egypt winning 4–0 which was the biggest defeat in the history of the teams' meetings.

The match was scoreless until Slovenia's captain Robert Koren scored in the 79th minute after Abdelkader Ghezzal was sent off for his second bookable offence.

The newly appointed coach tried to bring in new faces to the squad to bolster their offense but poor results continued for Benchikha's side who started off with a 2–0 away loss to Central African Republic.

The Bosnian coach's debut resulted in a 1–1 away draw against Tanzania, they then beat Central African Republic 2–0 with goals coming from Hassan Yebda and Foued Kadir.

Algeria arrived to the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations with plenty of confidence and with the emergence of Islam Slimani and El Arbi Hillel Soudani, as well as the addition to the squad of talented Valencia CF winger Sofiane Feghouli, Algeria was even considered one of the favorites to win the competition, but unfortunately for them they lacked experience and despite clear domination against their opponents, they finished last in their group after losing the first game against Tunisia 1–0 after a crucial 90'minute goal from Youssef Msakni.

After travelling to Kigali to face Rwanda, a 1–0 away victory guaranteed them the first-place position in their group which means they would advance to the final round of the qualifying campaign.

In their opening game against Belgium, Sofiane Feghouli scored Algeria's first World Cup goal for 28 years giving his team the lead 1–0.

After topping their 2015 Africa Cup of Nations qualification group which consisted of Mali, Malawi, and Ethiopia, Algeria were heavy favorites to win the 2015 edition of the tournament hosted in Equatorial Guinea.

Milovan Rajevac was then appointed manager in June 2016, but resigned 4 months later after Algeria's first World cup qualifying game ended in a home draw against Cameroon.

The Algerian Football federation then hired Georges Leekens who did no better than his predecessor by losing to Nigeria 3–1 during match day 2 of the World cup Qualifiers in November 2016.

Leekens then coached Algeria during the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations where the desert foxes had a horrible campaign drawing against Zimbabwe and Senegal and losing against Tunisia which resulted in an early group stage elimination.

The new president came with new ideas, he brought in Spanish coach Lucas Alcaraz to try to kick start the national team once again, however the Spaniard was sacked after poor results which meant Algeria would miss the 2018 Fifa World cup.

Madjer wouldn't last very long either, after a couple of bad results in friendly matches including a 3–0 loss against Portugal, he would also be sacked after only 7 months in charge.

However, due to his unsuccessful tenure with the Qatar national team, when they were eliminated early in the 2015 AFC Asian Cup,[17] skepticism arose about the manager.

In spite of criticisms of Belmadi, Algeria topped group C won all three matches including a 1–0 victory over 2018 FIFA World Cup's participant Senegal.

[21] Algeria's solid performance continued with a 3–0 win over Guinea in the round of sixteen;[22] before they overcame Ivory Coast in a hard-fought encounter which they won in a penalty shootout 4–3, after having drawn 1–1 after 120 minutes.

After Belaili scored in overtime and Morocco equalized again, the game went onto a penalty shootout that ended in a 5–3 win for Algeria, moving them to the semi-finals against the host country, Qatar.

However, the referee kept the match going when Qatar regained possession beyond reason which backfired when Algeria made a counterattack that ultimately led to a free kick scored by Belaili at 90+17', with the game concluding at a record 90+19'.

However, Tunisia missed the chance when Algeria gained possession for a counter-attack by Brahimi to conclude the match with a goal at 120+5' and winning the team another trophy.

Win Draw Loss Fixture The following players were called up for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Equatorial Guinea and Liberia on 14 and 17 November 2024.