Alcaraz meets Zatchi to decide about his future with Algeria

President of the Algerian Football Federation Khireddine Zatchi Sunday held a meeting with Algeria coach Lucas Alcaraz to decide about his future and the national team who were excluded from qualification to World Cup Russia 2018.

Alcaraz Sunday came back from Spain to Algeria. He had left Algiers after a match against Zambia as part of round four of World Cup Russia 2018’s qualifiers.

This is not the first time that the Spanish coach leaves Algeria in such a way. He has done the same thing after every training session or a game since he started working with the national team in April. This raised anger at the Federation as his contract with it stipulates that he should stay in Algeria to do his job.

Echorouk has learnt that Alcaraz met Zatchi on Sunday after the Federation’s president had come back from Switzerland where he had met FIFA’s president Gianni Infantino.

According to the same sources, the meeting evoked the Spanish coach’s future with the Algerian team.

The Algerian Football Federation tried to deny news about Alcaraz’s departure. Yet, Echorouk’s sources said the Spanish coach is likely to leave. Relations between the team’s technical staff and Alcaraz are not good.

All it seems that Alcaraz would continue working with the national team during the next two remaining matches as part of World Cup’s qualifiers (Cameroon on October 7th and Nigeria early in November). He would leave after those two games and Zatchi would start looking for his successor ahead of the African Cup of Nations 2019’s qualifiers, Echorouk has learnt.

Zatch also determined with Alcaraz the list of players for the match against Cameroon. Earlier, the Algerian Football Federation’s president said 4 or 5 professional players in Europe would be excluded from the national team.