{"id":61851,"date":"2026-05-31T15:58:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T14:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/?p=61851"},"modified":"2026-05-31T15:58:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T14:58:30","slug":"algeria-football-coach-petkovic-confident-in-defensive-options","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/?p=61851","title":{"rendered":"Petkovic Confident in Algeria&#8217;s Defensive Depth Ahead of World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>National team coach Vladimir Petkovic has reassured Algerian fans regarding the state of the right and left defensive flanks ahead of the upcoming World Cup. Petkovic stated on Sunday, while announcing the final squad for &#39;Les Verts,&#39; that he harbors no concerns about the available options for these positions.<\/p>\n<h2>Algeria national football team defense options<\/h2>\n<p>Responding to a question about the exclusion of Mehdi Dorval, who plays as a right-back, and the selection of Rafik Belghali alongside six center-backs, Petkovic commented, &quot;Aboud and Chergui can play on the right. With Belghali, I believe solutions are available on the right.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Petkovic continued to defend his choices, adding, &quot;On the left side of the defense, we also have solutions. With the return of Ruan Hagem, the presence of Ait-Nouri, alongside Bensebaini, who can occupy this role.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, the national coach highlighted that the versatility of several players selected for the World Cup is a significant advantage that the team can leverage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related topics:<\/strong> Algeria football, Vladimir Petkovic, World Cup squad, Algeria defense, national team, Algeria<\/p>\n<p><em>DZWatch provides English-language coverage of Algeria-focused developments for international readers.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Algeria&#8217;s national football coach, Vladimir Petkovic, expresses confidence in the team&#8217;s defensive depth for the World Cup, highlighting versatile&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/61850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}