Mahrez salutes Nigeria, believes Algeria’s young team will rise after this AFCON

In what can best be described as a one-sided match for the better part of the game, Algeria lost the first semifinal 2-0 at the Marrakesh Stadium.

Mahrez believes that the youthful team they brought to this tournament will learn a lot from this defeat and exit.

"We are disappointed of course we wanted to go to the semifinal. It's a tough one to take but football is like this. There are a lot of players who played their first African Cup of Nations, they have to go through these types of games, these types of tournaments to improve,” Mahrez said. 

“I think Nigeria has a lot of players who have played the African Cup of Nations and the new generation they played together a bit longer than us. I think they deserve to go and it's fine we'll recover and try to come back."

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At halftime, the stats were scary, as Algeria hadn’t fired a single shot at goal, compared to Nigeria’s 10 and missed sitters. 

Mahrez, who won his only AFCON title with the Desert Foxes in Egypt in 2019, says his younger countrymates will learn and grow from this disappointment.

"Like I just said to you, football is like this, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose when you give everything. Of course after the game you can talk about maybe doing things differently, playing in a different way but it's part of football like I said, especially the young players and the player who starts, they have to go through this."