Under Milovan Rejavac, highly valuable Algeria will begin to see if the sum equals its parts

Ian Hawkey assesses the state of Algeria football as they prepare to begin life under new manager Milovan Rajevac with the Africa Cup of Nations on the horizon.

Algeria's Islam Slimani celebrates a goal at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Jung Yeon-je / AFP / June 22, 2014

For Milovan Rajevac, it has been a disruptive week. Gathering together for the first time his squad of many talents in Algeria, the country’s new head coach sensed several players felt distracted.

One had no sooner answered the call-up than he was asking for leave. Islam Slimani, his leading striker, jetted back across the Mediterranean, for a medical in Bologna, carried out by doctors working for Leicester City.

Meanwhile, Yacine Brahimi, Algeria's enterprising playmaker, was in turmoil. Everton had seemed interested in paying a hefty €40 million (Dh163.9m) to take him, at the tail-end of the transfer window, from Porto to the richest league in the world. The deal fell through.

In short, more of the chatter around the Algerian national team, ahead of Sunday’s Africa Cup of Nations qualifier has been about the new club circumstances many of the leading players face than about how Lesotho, the opposition, will line up in Blida for Rajevac’s first game as a manager.

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Right now, Algeria’s stars can afford to have their minds elsewhere. They have already secured their place, at a canter, for the Nations Cup finals in Gabon in January.

And Rajevac, the Serbian with wide experience coaching across Africa and the Middle East, can smile about the causes of his players’ daydreams.

The busy negotiating that many have been involved is an endorsement of the blessings he has at his disposal.

According to current market valuations, this Algeria must be the most valuable national team any Arabic-speaking country has ever had.

Leicester, the Premier League champions, set a new club record in prizing Slimani from Sporting Lisbon for around €29m.

His five-year contract will take him to the age of 33, and that sort of commitment has not been made by the club in expectation that the striker, who scored 27 times in 33 Portuguese Primeira Liga games last season and has an international strike-rate of better than a goal every two outings, is going to be just an understudy to Jamie Vardy.

Advice on the move was taken by Slimani from his compatriot, Riyad Mahrez. Leicester’s Mahrez was voted Footballer of the Year for the 2015/16 season by his peers in England, the first African to win that award.

Mahrez might very well have moved this summer, but Leicester renewed his contract with them, on sumptuous terms, and a salary very different from the one he was earning in the French second division with Le Havre only two and half seasons ago.

Should Slimani and Mahrez start to combine each weekend as effectively as Vardy and Mahrez, Algeria can only benefit. Rajevac hopes so, and that the stimulus of Uefa Champions League football at Leicester refines the relationship further.

He will have a close eye on one date above all in that competition: Leicester v Porto in Group G on September 27.

He hopes by then Brahimi, the abundantly gifted creator, has re-established himself in the Porto team’s hierarchy, the club’s coach Nuno Espirito Santo having apparently cooled on the player, which had opened the door to a possible transfer, albeit at a very high fee.

Come October, Rajevac will want no distractions within his squad. Algeria meet Cameroon in their opening 2018 World Cup qualifier at the beginning of next month. The group they share looks by far the toughest of the African pools, containing Nigeria and Zambia, 2013 and 2012 African champions respectively.

By the time Cameroon visit, Rajevac also hopes Sofiane Feghouli has regained fitness. The winger is another whose talent has earned a move to the Premier League, Feghouli having joined West Ham United from Valencia.

Like Leicester with Slimani, West Ham happily took on Feghouli’s salary in the knowledge he would miss up to two months of the season at the Cup of Nations.

Another of the Premier League contingent, Watford's Adlene Guedioura, has been pleased to see new compatriots coming to England. "I think they'll find they've made the right choice," he said of Slimani and Feghouli, whose hamstring problem has kept him out of Rajevac's first squad.

“But the main thing now is for us all to get know the new national coach.”

Rajevac’s task is clear: to make Algeria’s brilliant attack look at least the sum of its highly-valued parts.

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