Marked for Oussama Benhaoua
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Aug 2027
A fracture rules Djamel Belalem out for 70 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason MC El Bayadh will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market16 Aug 2027
The offer from JS Kabylie for Duván Sevillano was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad16 Aug 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at MC El Bayadh this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Aug 2027
At 28 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
The terraces16 Aug 2027
MC El Bayadh spend $53.0K on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $53.0K for Kheiredine Merzougui, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Jacob Morales falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad9 Aug 2027
Sebastián Ramírez damages knee ligaments — 94 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 94 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match9 Aug 2027
MC Alger up to position 1
71 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Market9 Aug 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad9 Aug 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at MC Alger this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Ishak Talal Boussouf has improved at 25, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Market9 Aug 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at MC Alger, another week without a signature from Munir Mohand.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match19 Dec 2026
Whatever happens, MC Alger do not lose
13 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Getting past Munir Mohand has become the hardest job in the division
10 clean sheets and counting. Forwards used to back themselves here; now they shoot early, shoot wide, and look for somebody to blame.
Squad21 Dec 2026
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. MC Alger told Kenneth Omeruo something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Match19 Dec 2026
A 2‑2 draw with MB Rouissat leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Oussama Benhaoua falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match30 Nov 2026
MC Alger are in among the leaders
Position 1 and 28 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Match28 Nov 2026
Whatever happens, MC Alger do not lose
10 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad30 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at MC Alger this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.18, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad30 Nov 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market7 Sep 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what MC Alger can pretend not to have heard.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Mohamed Zoungrana was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Graduation day at MC Alger
3 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market7 Sep 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ramy Zeffane has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market7 Sep 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Abderrahmane Mahrez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market7 Sep 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Mehdi Haddad has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Match5 Sep 2026
Three points for MC Alger, 1‑0 the final word against MB Rouissat in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 17. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
In brief
-
Player ratings
Nicolás Molina stands above it all
-
Boardroom
MC Alger turn down the training-ground plan
-
Squad
Words at MC Alger training over how hard people work