Algerian coach Djamel Belmadi became only the second man in history to lift the African title with the Desert Foxes, he wants to be the third to take the side to the World Cup.

But also well aware of the former immediate African champions and their failure for making it to Russia in 2018, Belmadi won’t be taking any chances as he tries to guide the two time African champions to a fifth World Cup.

“Our first goal is to reach Qatar 2022,” Belmadi who was also nominated for the 2019 FIFA Coach of the year award told www.fifa.com before adding.

“The qualifiers will be difficult, long, and uncertain, but we have to shoulder our responsibilities as champions of Africa, and we have to fight to reach the finals.”

“No doubt there will be some difficult and extraordinary circumstances during the African qualifiers, so we have to get used to these conditions to achieve good results,” he added.

Seems it’s a disease for teams that work so hard to attain success compared to those who have made a tradition.

The former tends to take a back seat and get the foot off the pedal which in the long run make their success appear like an accident.

“Especially since Cameroon, winners of the Africa Cup in 2017, failed to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Very often after a major achievement, results get worse and things become hard.”

“The evidence is that Cameroon failed to qualify for Russia and did not do well at the last Africa Cup. We need to learn from these examples before embarking on the qualifiers,” Belmadi noted.

Having been at the 1982, 1986, 2010 and 2014 editions, only advancing out of the group stages at the latter, Belmadi will be hoping for a much better show once they qualify for the finals in Qatar.

“First, it’s not easy to reach a World Cup, but if we get to the finals, we’ll do our very best in Qatar so that we’re not just there to take part.”

“But first, we must maintain a winning culture to stay among the top five [African sides] in the FIFA Ranking, which will be important in determining the seeding for the draw,” added the former Algerian international.

Algeria and Belmadi will also hope to achieve one more than Cameroon in 1990, Senegal in 2002 and Ghana in 2010 when they reached the last eight of the competition but couldn’t advance.

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