The Burkina Faso-Algeria match, scheduled for Tuesday, starting at 20:00 Algeria time, at Marrakesh Stadium in Morocco, for the second round of the 2022 World Cup qualifiers, will be crucial to qualifying for the next round, as it brings together the strong candidates for the first group, especially since they were at the level of their reputation by winning the first match of the group against Ali Niger (2-0) and (8-0) respectively in front of Djibouti.
If the Algerian squad rained the net of the modest Djibouti team with eight clean goals, the Burkinabe team suffered both before beating Niger in Marrakesh, revealing its ambitions to go far in this high-level competition.
The Burkina Faso national team’s achievement was great, as it succeeded in its mission in the absence of a number of key elements, including Bertrand Traore, Edmond Tasuba, Alain Traore and captain Charles Kabore for various reasons.
Despite all these absences, coach Camu Malo managed to present a competitive squad that allowed him to make a good start in these qualifiers, which suggests that Tuesday’s match against Algeria will be very interesting.
As for the Algerian national team, in addition to its sweeping victory, it achieved its 28th match in a row without defeat, including five consecutive victories, during which the comrades of captain Riyad Mahrez scored 20 goals against one goal.
These characteristics make the match against Burkina Faso extremely crucial for the rest of the journey, even though the four rounds are still in the second qualifying round program, which includes a total of 12 points, enough to win qualification.
It seems that the Burkina Faso national team has a small advantage as it has been in Marrakesh for several days, where it played its first match, which made it find some of its features, unlike the Algerian team, which will be in Morocco one day before the match.
This situation does not worry the national coach, Jamal Belmadi, as he has repeatedly stressed that the climatic conditions currently prevailing in Morocco are the same as in Algeria, which makes the players do not need to adapt to the climatic conditions in Morocco, which is one of the reasons why the Greens do not move to Marrakesh except on the eve of the meeting and only one training session in Ain Place. Belmadi and his players confirmed that they will take this match very seriously, as they feel the difficulty of the task.
“Burkina Faso is not Djibouti, as it will be a different kind of match, and we will do everything in our power to return with a positive result that will allow us to achieve a first step towards qualifying for the next World Cup,” said Ismael Bennacer, midfielder for AC Milan.
The same impression is found by national voter Djamel Belmadi, who confirmed at the end of the match against Djibouti that “he wants to stay at the same pace and do everything to achieve another positive result against Burkina Faso in order to ensure qualification as soon as possible and to play the rest of the rounds comfortably.”
Similar to Niger in the first round, Burkina Faso will be forced to host Algeria in Marrakech due to the lack of rehabilitation of its stadiums, including the stadium in the capital, Ouagadougou, by the qualification committee of the International Football Association.
The match will be moderated by the Botswana referee, Joshua Bondo, with the assistance of Soro Fostoni (Lizoto) and Mathieu Kaninanga (Namibia).
