It is not often that Riyad Mahrez comes off the bench with quite such a broad smile on his face. But, boy, was he beaming when he joined the stampede of Algerians in tracksuit tops hurtling on to the pitch at the Prince Moulay Hassan stadium on a rousing night in the Africa Cup of Nations last-16.
When you are the captain, the elder statesman and all-round flag-bearing icon of a sporting nation, you take extra care to keep your dignity.
So as teammates splayed across the turf, lauding their goalscoring hero, the unexpected extra-time match-winner Adil Boulbina on Wednesday, Mahrez stayed on his feet, a yard from the wild scrum.
Yet the moment meant as much to him, a full 40 minutes after he had been withdrawn – tired from his efforts in Algeria’s nip-and-tuck tie against the Democratic Republic of Congo – as it did to any compatriot.
Especially because Algeria performed their 119th minute coup in Rabat, the capital of neighbouring Morocco, turning its boulevards into Algerians’ noisy domain for an evening.
There is, should the Desert Foxes’ momentum continue beyond Saturday’s quarter-final against Nigeria, the spiky prospect of a direct confrontation with the host nation should Morocco overcome Cameroon in their last-eight clash on Friday.
Should Senegal overcome Mali in Tangier, and Egypt steer their way past reigning champions Ivory Coast on Saturday, then the semi-finals would have a trio of distinguished elder statesmen in the jostle for the highest podium finish.
Mahrez, the 34-year-old guiding light of Algeria’s 2019 African champions, eyes a stirring comeback, an uptick in a long international career that has, over the past five seasons, known some dispiriting moments.
Sadio Mane, attacking leader of Senegal’s 2022 Afcon winners, is, at 33, still crucial to his team’s mix of verve and worldliness. And where Egypt have Mohamed Salah, also 33, twice a frustrated silver-medallist in the competition, they have hope.
These doyens have all had excellent Afcons, Salah spreading his three goals across each of his three matches and Mane contributing three assists and a goal.
It has been a good tournament for others of their generation, notably Ayoub El Kaabi, 32, the much-travelled Morocco centre-forward, whose athletic bicycle kicks dominated the highlights packages of the group phase, where he registered three goals, two via overhead volley.
But there is urgency, too, about the ambitions of them all. Mahrez can sense the brisk wind of change about Algeria’s national team and knows how fragile the bond between iconic player and the fan base can be.
The last time Mahrez trotted off the bench at an Afcon it was for anything but a celebration. He had been dropped from the starting XI for his country’s last group game in Bouake, Ivory Coast.
He was 32 and had become a European club champion with Manchester City only six months earlier. And yet his poor international form had made him no more than an emergency option for a coach, Djamel Belmadi with whom he had once had the most productive of bonds.
As it turned out, Mahrez could do nothing to correct a 1-0 deficit against Mauritania in Bouake and Algeria were about to exit a Nations Cup before the knockout rounds for the second, humiliating tournament in succession.
The panorama for Fennecs in Morocco is altogether healthier. The captain, six months on from claiming an Asian Champions League winner's medal with Al Ahli, is his country’s lead marksman – three goals from his three starts – here.
Mahrez tends not to see out the full 90 minutes under Belmadi’s successor, Vladimir Petkovic, but understands he is vital to Algeria’s game plan, one based around the experienced attacker’s vision and the speed of younger men.
On that list, thanks to his stunning impact against DR Congo, Boulbina must be included, along with Mohamed Amoura and Rayan Ait-Nouri, and 20-year-old Ibrahim Maza.
Boulbina had barely entered the pitch, when, served by another late substitute in Ramiz Zerrouki, he launched his right-footed rocket into the top corner of the Congolese goal.
International football suddenly seems like great fun for the 22-year-old. He only made his Algeria debut last month. He has played a mere 19 minutes in Morocco and achieved superhero status with that wondergoal.
With Maza impressing, Amoura, 25, gaining greater responsibility, Boulbina arriving like a comet and the promise that Olympique Marseille’s 25-year-old Amine Gouiri – absent from Afcon with injury – will have a role to play at the summer’s World Cup, Mahrez would acknowledge that, some time soon, he will no longer be indispensable.
Likewise Mane, Salah and Al Kaabi sense that a period of transition is, if not imminent, likely to occur before the next Cup of Nations.
Mane, described by Senegal coach Pape Thiaw as “remarkable, a blessing to have in our team, excellent at every level all tournament”, has seen Senegal’s long-term attacking future vividly.
It looks like Nicolas Jackson, the 24-year-old owned by Chelsea and currently on loan at Bayern Munich, and Ibrahim Mbaye, the dashing teenager from Paris Saint-Germain, who has, from the bench, set up two goals and scored another at this Afcon.
While Al Kaabi may have nudged ahead of Youssef En-Nesyri and Al Ain’s Soufiane Rahimi in Morocco’s hierarchy of centre-forwards, he is aware competition for striking places with the Atlas Lions is likely to intensify.
Morocco’s under-20s won their age-group World Cup last year, and the seniors’ manager Walid Regragui is under pressure to promote some of the stellar forwards from that cohort.
Salah, meanwhile, may well be approaching a personal crossroads. He could yet find himself employed by a club other than Liverpool by the summer, his relationship with the Premier League champions, whom he has elevated to the greatest heights over the last eight and a half years, as uncertain as it ever has been.
It is plausible his next Afcon might, as with Mane of Al Nassr and Mahrez of Al Ahli, be launched from a new base in the Saudi Arabian Pro League.
No disadvantage in that, as Mahrez’s renaissance testifies, and as Mane’s continuing importance to Senegal bears witness. But for each of them, the countdown to the day they no longer automatically put Afcon in their biennial diaries is not far off.
