We knew it was coming. I wrote two years ago that Algeria was structurally underprepared for this kind of opponent in a knockout. The structural problems have not been solved. The result was not a surprise.
Nigeria did not play their best match. They did not have to. Osimhen scored from a corner, which is the kind of goal Algeria has been conceding for three years and has not learned to defend. The second came from a counter, after Algeria committed numbers forward chasing the equalizer that was not going to come.
The post-match analysis in Algiers will run the same patterns it always runs. The coach should go. The federation should be restructured. The diaspora should be courted again. The youth system should be invested in. All of this will be said. None of it will be acted on with the seriousness it requires, because the federation cannot self-correct without external pressure, and there is no external pressure.
What I want to write about is the gap between the football we watched and the football we wanted to watch. We wanted the 2014 generation. We have not had a coach since who built around a clear identity the way Halilhodžić did. The federation has churned through five regimes in eight years. Each one has tried to recover the feeling of 2014 by changing personnel. None of them has changed the structure that produced 2014, which was a coach with full authority and a federation that gave him quiet support.
Until the federation can produce that environment again, Algeria will keep arriving at tournaments with the talent of a quarter-finalist and the execution of a group-stage exit. The talent is there. The execution will not arrive on its own.
Nigeria deserved this. We deserved the result we got.