Published on 6/29/2026
The official account of the Algerian national team published the enthusiastic speech delivered by its captain, Riyad Mahrez, to his teammates, before the decisive match that brought together the “Desert Warriors” with Austria in the third and final round of the tenth group matches, in the 2026 World Cup finals.
Although Algeria needed one point from that match to qualify for the round of 32, Mahrez (35 years old) called on his teammates to play it strongly and seriously without considering any other calculations, and to focus on achieving victory only, which dispels doubts about the players’ laxity in the exciting confrontation.
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Mahrez’s enthusiastic speech
In the clip published by the Algerian national team’s account on the
Mahrez said: “Guys, we have talked enough and now it is time for the field! We put ourselves in this position, we won our second match and did what was required, and now we have to finish the job.”
He added, “Guys, we want to qualify for the second round for the sake of our country. This happened only once before, and today we can enter the history of our country again. Not just the history of football, as we don’t care about that, but the history of our country!”
Mahrez enumerated the necessary elements to achieve this, saying, “It depends on the pitch, guys, on our skills. But skills alone are not enough if they are not accompanied by the heart, the fighting spirit, and everything necessary with it.”
He concluded with a fiery sentence, “We will eat them, guys! In the positive sense of the word, every struggle over the ball must be won. There are no calculations. We play to win. Is this understood, guys? Come on, come on, come on.”
Algeria qualified
In that match, which ended in an exciting 3-3 draw, Mahrez was able to score the second and third goals, the last of which came close to giving Algeria the desired victory.
Mahrez visited Austria for the second time in the 93rd minute, scoring what seemed for a moment to be the winning goal (3-2), before the European team was able to adjust the score in the final seconds of stoppage time through substitute Sasha Kaladzic.
The Algerian national team succeeded in qualifying for the qualifying rounds for the second time in its history, after the first in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, in which the “Desert Warriors” were eliminated by losing to Germany 0-2 in the round of 16.
This qualification was achieved by considering Algeria one of the best 8 teams that occupied third place, so that the “Desert Warriors” set a date in the round of 32 with Switzerland, while Austria faces Spain in the same stage.
The match between Algeria and Switzerland is scheduled to take place next Friday at 6:00 am Mecca and Doha time.
