Algeria’s Riyad Mahrez, from a Paris suburb to the summit of African football

Issued on: 28/12/2021 – 07:50

It’s rare for players to have a stadium named after them during their lifetime. But at the Nelson Mandela Sports Centre in Sarcelles – a suburb north of Paris – a stadium is named for one of the area’s most cherished products: Riyad Mahrez, Manchester City star and captain of the Algeria team that won CAN-19. 

Mahrez achieved this renown despite an unusual start to his career. Unlike many players of his calibre growing up in Europe, he did not start out at the academy of a storied club. 

“Only one person believed in Mahrez’s future success, and that was Riyad himself,” Hayel Mbemba, a former teammate at AAS Sarcelles, the obscure French team where Mahrez played as a teenager. “His strength of character is decidedly above average,” Mbemba told AFP. 

‘You can’t even play for Sarcelles!’ 

The 30-year-old Mahrez’s footballing story begins at this local club he joined at the age of 12. Despite playing for hours on end, Mahrez was seen by recruiters as just an average player. For all his technical mastery, his slender physique was not a draw for top talent scouts. 

“Initially the quality of his technique allowed him to get by well,” Mohamed Coulibaly, technical director of AAS Sarcelles, told AFP. “But it was difficult when he switched to 11-a-side football; it was more complicated for him, because as teenage boys go he was late to develop physically from the age of 12 to 16. He was small and didn’t have the physical qualities necessary for the game, so he found it hard for three or four years. He was playing in the reserve team. There were the championships for 14-year-olds at that point – it was the highest level in France at that age category. Players in that tournament got great visibility, so the really promising ones could join professional clubs. But Mahrez didn’t grab their attention.” 

Mahrez persisted in the face of adversity. He would tell everyone who listened that he would play at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. His trainers responded: “You can’t even play for Sarcelles!” Coulibaly told AFP. 

But Mahrez’s flourishing self-confidence eventually paid off. His physical development eventually caught up with that of his peers. He ended up becoming a mainstay of the AAS Sarcelles first team – and then something of a star. All the while, Mahrez never stopped pursuing his dream of breaking through as a professional, regularly jumping on planes and trains to carry out tests across Europe. 

He finally got a break at 18, signing with Quimper, a Breton club in France’s fourth division. This was the start of Mahrez’s inexorable ascent. The following year he moved to Ligue 1 side Le Havre. 

Fierce motivation 

Mahrez’s impressive performances in Normandy attracted the attention of English sides; in 2014 he signed for Leicester City, then playing in the Championship, the English second division. At first he was reluctant, but after consulting with friends in Sarcelles he decided to cross the Channel. 

But Leicester turned out to be an inspired choice. They soon won promotion to the Premier League and – under acclaimed manager Claudio Ranieri – pulled off the unbelievable achievement of clinching the title in 2016, triumphing over England’s big six. 

It was a series of stellar performances, which helped power humdrum Leicester into the footballing stratosphere, that won Mahrez the attention of Europe’s biggest clubs. In 2018, he signed for Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City juggernaut, winning the 2019 and 2021 Premiership titles. 

With both French and Algerian citizenship, Mahrez chose to represent Algeria, his parents’ country of origin. Mahrez got his first cap aged 23, while Algeria were on the qualification route for the 2014 World Cup. Algeria’s then manager Vahid Halilhodzic was impressed by his talent and called him up for the tournament in Brazil – vindicating Mahrez against the doubters who ridiculed his dream. The vindication was especially sweet when the unfancied Algeria side progressed to the knockout stages, crashing out only against Germany, the team that went on to win the tournament. 

Five years later, Mahrez lifted the CAN trophy wearing the captain’s armband as Algeria triumphed over Egypt in the final – after a particularly impressive semi-final performance against Nigeria, with two goals including a spectacular free kick in extra-time. 

For all his success and fame, Mahrez never forgot his roots. Shortly after his success at CAN-19, he returned to Sarcelles, where Mayor Patrick Haddad bestowed him with the town medal, as his proud mother looked on. 

It was “only natural” to give Mahrez the medal, Haddad said. “He represents an exemplary form of success and he is a great representative of Sarcelles. That’s why we wanted to give a kind of formal recognition of our pride in his career – which shows everyone, especially young people growing up here, what can be achieved.” 

For all his success, Mahrez remains a “local boy” at heart, Haddad added. 

The Man City star remains active in the local community, regularly inviting young AAS Sarcelles players to Manchester to watch his club play. 

In a 2015 interview, Mahrez told The Guardian that his father’s death from a heart attack gave him the kind of fierce motivation he needed: “My dad was always behind me, he wanted me to be a footballer. He was always with me. He came to every game with me to give me help. He played before for small teams in Algeria and France and he knew what he was saying, so I listened to him. [His death] maybe was the kick-start. I don’t know if I started to be more serious but after the death of my dad things started to go for me. Maybe in my head I wanted it more.” 

Given that Algeria boast an unbeaten run in their past 33 official matches, Mahrez has every reason to believe that his relentless desire to succeed will bring his nation its second consecutive CAN trophy. 

This article was translated from the original in French.