AFCON 2025 | Round of 16 | January 6, 2026
This is the point where tournaments stop pretending to be generous.
Seventeen hundred hours in Rabat, the afternoon heat still clinging to the concrete, and two former champions step into a match that will not negotiate. Algeria and DR Congo arrive at the Round of 16 carrying different histories, but the same demand. Win, or disappear quietly into the archive of nearly moments.
For Algeria, this is about erasure. Two consecutive group-stage collapses at AFCON 2022 and 2024 still sit uncomfortably close to the surface. For DR Congo, it is about return. A 52-year wait since continental gold has hardened into something heavier than patience. This is not a tie that needs selling. It already knows what it is.
The Setting: Where Pressure Accumulates
The Stade Prince Moulay Abdellah is rarely neutral. The noise does not arrive all at once; it layers. Drums echo, chants overlap, and by kickoff the stadium hums rather than roars. Algeria will feel close to home here, geographically and culturally. But that familiarity comes with expectation. And expectation tightens quickly in knockout football.
Kickoff is set for 17:00 local time. The light will still be present, but softer. Enough to see everything clearly. Enough to remove excuses.
Algeria: The Weight of Needing to Be Right Again
Under Vladimir Petkovic, Algeria have looked like a team intent on repairing something rather than reinventing it. The group stage offered evidence. Three wins from three. Eight goals scored. One conceded. Not chaotic. Not emotional. Just efficient.
There is a difference between confidence and relief. Algeria appear closer to the former now. The ball moves with purpose. Midfield rotations are cleaner. Defensive spacing has tightened. This feels like a side that knows where it is supposed to be.
Yet knockout football remembers more than form. Algeria know that better than most. Their last two AFCON exits came early and suddenly, moments where control slipped into panic. This Round of 16 is not just a hurdle; it is a checkpoint. Lose here, and progress elsewhere becomes irrelevant.
At the centre of this push is Riyad Mahrez. Three goals already in the tournament. One more would place him alongside the most prolific Algerian campaigns in AFCON history. But numbers only tell part of the story. Mahrez’s importance now is not only about output. It is about calm. He slows games down when others rush. He makes pressure feel negotiable.
“We dare not fail again,” he said earlier in the tournament. It was not bravado. It sounded like memory speaking.
DR Congo: Resistance as Identity
If Algeria arrive as a rising tide, DR Congo arrive as structure. As refusal.
Unbeaten in eight matches under Sébastien Desabre, the Leopards have built something that does not rely on spectacle. Their progress has been incremental, measured, and mentally deliberate. This is a team comfortable waiting.
The group stage did not overwhelm. It suggested durability. DR Congo conceded just once. They did not dominate possession, but they rarely lost shape. In knockout football, that matters.
At the core of this resistance is Chancel Mbemba. Captain. Organiser. The player who absorbs pressure so others can breathe. Mbemba’s tournament is also a reminder of modern football’s grinding demands. After the 2024 AFCON, he returned to club duty within days. No pause. No decompression. This tournament has asked him to do it again.
He has responded by simplifying everything around him. Clearances without flourish. Duels without complaint. Leadership without noise.
The Washing Machine Effect
This match will be shaped not only by tactics, but by fatigue. The accumulation kind.
Former France defender Raphaël Varane once described elite football as a washing machine. Endless cycles. No space to dry. AFCON compresses that feeling further. Travel, humidity, recovery windows that barely exist.
Players like Mahrez and Mbemba are navigating that load while being asked to define outcomes. It shows in small ways. Heavier touches. Shorter sprints. Longer pauses between moments of intensity.
The question is not who is tired. It is who can manage it better.
Injuries and Adjustments
Algeria arrive with concerns. Jaouen Hadjam is ruled out, removing depth at left-back. More troubling is the status of Rayan Aït-Nouri, who was taken from training by ambulance after suffering a severe illness. His availability remains uncertain.
Petkovic has already responded by experimenting. A back three, featuring Ramy Bensebaïni, Aïssa Mandi, and Mohamed Amine Belaïd, offers structural insurance. It sacrifices width but increases control. Against a team that thrives on disruption, that trade-off may be intentional.
DR Congo have their own worry. Arthur Masuaku is battling a hamstring issue. If he cannot start, Joris Kayembe is expected to deputise. That shift matters. Mahrez on a compromised flank is a risk that cannot be hidden.
The Midfield Pulse
Both sides lean toward a 4-2-3-1 in their default shapes. Algeria average 58 percent possession, passing with an accuracy close to 87 percent. They prefer to dictate tempo rather than accelerate it. The ball is a tool, not a weapon.
DR Congo’s midfield operates differently. Less about circulation, more about compression. Distances between lines remain short. Transitions are selective. When they break, they do so with intent, not volume.
Gaël Kakuta becomes important here. At 33, he is no longer constant, but he is precise. He chooses moments. If Algeria’s full-back situation opens gaps, Kakuta will look to step into them rather than sprint past them.
History and the Illusion of Comfort
Algeria are unbeaten in seven meetings with DR Congo. Two AFCON encounters. Two clean sheets. History leans green and white.
But knockout football does not respect patterns unless they are reinforced. DR Congo’s current run suggests they are capable of rewriting small pieces of that history, even if not the whole story.
There is also a milestone hovering. DR Congo sit on 99 goals in AFCON history. The next goal, whenever it comes, will be their 100th. It is a number, but numbers carry weight in tournaments like this. They become hooks. They become moments.
The Crowd and the Current
Morocco complicates things. Proximity means Algerian support will be strong, vocal, and present. But neutrality has its own instincts. Local fans may lean toward DR Congo, drawn by the underdog, or by the simple arithmetic of avoiding a dominant Algeria deeper in the tournament.
The atmosphere will not be hostile. It will be conditional. It will respond to momentum.
Where This Match Turns
If Algeria score first, history suggests the road opens. They are unbeaten in their last 15 AFCON matches when taking the lead. Control becomes easier. Patience feels justified.
If DR Congo hold, if they stretch the match into the final half-hour, pressure begins to pool elsewhere. In memories. In expectations. In legs that start to feel heavier than they did in the group stage.
This is not about brilliance. It is about stress tolerance.
As one pundit put it, this is the tie of the round. Not because of glamour, but because both teams arrive knowing exactly what failure would mean.
Final Shape
Algeria are the tide. Structured, heavier than before, moving with purpose rather than force. DR Congo are the dam. Unbroken, disciplined, absorbing pressure one wave at a time.
Something will give. It always does.
The only question is whether it breaks suddenly, or slowly enough to be remembered
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