1: Nadir Belhadj, Algeria, Topps Match Attax Trading Card Game, England Collector Binder

You can learn a lot in the back of a cab. When my wife and I spent a few days in and around Liverpool we were given a far more informative tour of the city by the man who took us from the station to our hotel than the one provided by the official sightseeing company. We might not have seen where The Beatles did anything but we got the rundown on Everton’s proposed new stadium from the planning permission issues to the potential development it could create along the banks of the Mersey. This positivity was quite surprising as the driver was a Liverpool fan but I guess we all keep our enemies closer from time to time.

Back in the early summer of 2010 my fellow blogger Mat and I found ourselves outside the New Cross Inn about half an hour after the last train had left and not necessarily in peak condition to walk back to my parents’ house. Thankfully the proximity of South East London’s premiere nightspot, The Venue, meant that there was a host of available minicabs and, for a far more reasonable price than two pints of Stella in the pub we had just left, we were on our way home. Even better than that we were treated to a lecture on why Algeria would emerge as champions in the upcoming World Cup in South Africa and why Nadir Belhadj would soon come to be seen in the same light as Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. Unlike his aforementioned Scouse counterpart this particular taxi driver was speaking very much from the fan’s perspective.

The Desert Foxes had seen off the likes of Senegal and Egypt in qualifying for their first World Cup finals since 1986 and found themselves drawn in a group with England, Slovenia and the USA. It’s fair to say there were some scores to settle. Back in 1982 Algeria had been denied a place in the second round by some high class shithousery from West Germany and Austria who, well aware that a 1-0 win for the former would see both teams through on goal difference, shocked no one by returning that exact result. ‘The Disgrace of Gijon’ led to FIFA scheduling all final group games to kick off at the same time in subsequent tournaments not that did Algeria many favours. On top of this the English press had derided the Three Lions’ group stage opponents with The Sun leading with the acrostic headline of “EASY” (England, Algeria, Slovenia, Yanks) following the draw. More on how “easy” that was later.

Nadir Belhadj had spent the year leading up to the tournament on the South Coast of England with Portsmouth. The 2009/10 season had been miserable for Pompey as they fell into administration and finished the Premier League season bottom of the pile with a paltry nineteen points (partly due to a nine-point deduction for their financial situation). There was some joy in the FA Cup, which they had lifted two seasons previously, where they reached the final only to succumb to Chelsea. Belhadj had acquitted himself reasonably well during the campaign and contributed five goals in all competitions from left-back including strikes against Arsenal, Liverpool and arch-rivals Southampton in a cathartic 4-1 cup thrashing. By way of comparison Ronaldo banged in 33 in 35 games in his first season at Real Madrid and Messi 47 in 53 at Barcelona. Neither of them put in a battling performance on a cold November afternoon in Stoke though so clearly our cab driver was on to something.

The day after England’s golden generation had recorded a 1-1 draw with the ‘Yanks’, which led Fabio Capello to turn to David James to solve the Three Lions’ goalkeeping woes, Algeria suffered a 1-0 defeat to Slovenia in their first World Cup finals appearance in 24 years. With the USA and Slovenia drawing their fixture the group was wide open ahead of England’s clash with Algeria which had been conveniently scheduled for a Friday evening. My office closed early and I spent the afternoon in the Catford Ram with my sister watching Serbia’s shock victory over Germany before heading over to our folks’ to watch what should be a routine victory for England. Clearly I should have taken more notice of my cab driver from a few weeks’ earlier as England and Algeria played out one of the single worst games of football anyone has ever seen. At least it had only been a ten minute bus journey back to my parents’ place and we got a nice dinner out of it. A friend of mine from university had driven eleven hours through the night on a detour from his American road trip to find a bar playing the game. Must have been well worth it when Wayne Rooney whinged to the camera about being booed by the England fans out in South Africa.

Just like in 1982 Algeria went into their last group game with everything to play for and no danger of England and Slovenia playing for a predetermined result. The North African side had the best of the early chances in Pretoria but were eventually undone by a last minute strike from Landon Donovan securing the USA’s passage to the second round. Over in Port Elizabeth England scraped past Slovenia courtesy of a Jermaine Defoe strike to join their transatlantic cousins in the knockout stages. Algeria finished bottom of the group with a solitary point and without troubling the scorers. Maybe our cab driver had been wearing rose tinted glasses after all. At least he didn’t have to endure a shellacking at the hands of Germany a few days later.

Clearly aware of the sporting heritage that earned the nation the hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup, Belhadj headed over to Al-Sadd in Qatar in the summer of 2010, where he continues to ply his trade with Al-Sailliya. Despite winning all that Qatar has to offer, including the AFC Champions League in 2011, the Ballon d’Or nominations were not forthcoming. Not only did Algeria not win the World Cup in 2010 but they failed to qualify for the 2014 and 2018 editions of the tournament. What can we take away from all this? Perhaps the wisdom of cab drivers gets diluted after midnight. Perhaps Nadir Belhadj remains an underappreciated star of the game who the football hipsters of the next generation will claim to adore when their contemporaries are waxing lyrical about Ronaldo and Messi. Perhaps, most importantly, when it comes to a big international tournament we all dare to dream a bit more than usual.