An African star has admitted to still being traumatised by his nation's failure to qualify for the upcoming FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
Some of CAF's biggest sides will be missing out on this year's showpiece, with the likes of Nigeria, Egypt and Algeria all failing to qualify for the tournament despite a combined 13 qualifications for the event between them.
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Algeria, who have participated in four editions of the World Cup (1982, 1986, 2010 and 2014), suffered massive disappointment back in March when they lost their two-legged play-off to Cameroon via the away goals rule.
In January this year, the Desert Foxes were also embarrassingly eliminated from the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations at the group stage despite going into the competition as defending champions.
The North African side's central midfielder Adlene Guedioura has now revealed that his national team's failure to secure a place in Qatar still haunts him.
"I went back to Paris with my family. It took me three weeks to a month to try to go out because Paris is full of Algerians and people come to you to tell you: 'What's happened, how and why?'," the Al Duhail star told the BBC's World Football podcast.
"Those memories come back and it's hurting.
"It's going to be a trauma in my head because I'm 36 now and I still have a lot in the tank. It was my life's hope to play the World Cup here (in Qatar).
"I'm quite familiar to this country, the manager (of Algeria) lives in Qatar as well.
"Many players play here, so for us it was kind of a World Cup in our second country.
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"The problem is that it was so close that the hurt is more. and the scenario of the game [against Cameroon] as well hurts even more.
"It's going to be a trauma that will take time for me to recover [from]."
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