This is a complete list of Algerian football players in foreign leagues, i.e. association football players who have played in foreign leagues.
For most of the twentieth century, most Algeria internationals played in the native Algerian Ligue Professionnelle 1; however, the national team has included some players based abroad from the beginning. While some in the 1960s and 1970s played for Algerian clubs, for example Hacène Lalmas and Mokhtar Khalem at CR Belcourt, others played in France, such as Sadek Boukhalfa with Nantes or Mustapha Zitouni with AS Monaco. Seven players of the squad for the 1982 FIFA World Cup came from a foreign club: Abdelmajid Bourebbou (Stade Lavallois), Mustapha Dahleb (Paris SG), Djamel Tlemcani (Stade de Reims), Djamel Zidane (KV Kortrijk), Karim Maroc (FC Tours), Faouzi Mansouri (Montpellier HSC) and Nourredine Kourichi (Girondins Bordeaux). By the time of the 1986 World Cup that number had increased to 11 (50% of the squad), and at the 2010 and 2014 tournaments almost all were playing abroad (there were three and two home-based players respectively in the 23-man squads).
The history of Algerian players in Europe
A large number of Algerian players have played in Europe, especially in France, the former colonial ruler of Algeria. The first Algerian player in Europe and first North African to play in France was Ali Benouna who joined Sète in 1930. He is the first Algerian player to win a European title, having won the French league and Coupe de France of the 1933–34 season with Sète. Benouna paved the way for more Algerians to soon taste the success of the French league. This was done by Abdelkader Ben Bouali in the colors of Olympique de Marseille in the 1936–37 season, then Mohamed Firoud and Abdelaziz Ben Tifour on two consecutive occasions with Nice in 1950–51 and 1951–52, in addition to Rachid Mekhloufi in 1956–57 with Saint Etienne and Mohamed Maouche in the next season with Stade de Reims; all these titles came in the colonial era. As for the first player to win a title outside France, Mekhloufi holds that accolade for winning the Swiss League in 1962.
In relation to statistics, the most prominent of these are Rachid Mekhloufi, star of AS Saint-Étienne who scored 150 goals and won the four league titles. There is also Mustapha Dahleb, former star for Paris Saint-Germain where he achieved two Coupe de France victories and is one of the most popular players in the history of the club (310 matches and 98 goals in 10 seasons). Rabah Madjer was perhaps the best Algerian player to turn professional in Europe; he claimed ten trophies with FC Porto: three League, two Cup and two Super Cup on the domestic level and two continental titles on the level, including the European Cup in 1987 becoming the first Algerian and an African player to achieve this feat, and the Intercontinental Cup in Japan against Peñarol from Uruguay in which he scored the winning goal. In the 1970s and 1980s, Algerian players were generally not allowed to play professionally until they were over 28 years old which deprived many of the stars of the Algerian team at the time of a top-level career, especially after the 1982 FIFA World Cup, including Mehdi Cerbah, Hocine Yahi, Chaabane Merzekane, Fodil Megharia, Hacène Lalmas, Mahmoud Guendouz, Ali Bencheikh, Ali Fergani, Lakhdar Belloumi, Djamel Menad, Tedj Bensaoula and Omar Betrouni; some of them did play professionally but did not achieve much success because of their advancing age. There were some players allowed to move abroad even though they had not reached the age of 28: Djamel Zidane, Rabah Madjer and Salah Assad.
Several other players have achieved prominent titles: Rafik Djebbour won eight titles, four League and 4 in the cu, followed by El Arbi Hillel Soudani with 7 titles including three league and three cup, then Madjid Bougherra who won six trophies with Glasgow Rangers. Ahmed Reda Madouni was the first Algerian Bundesliga champion in the colours of Borussia Dortmund in the 2001–02 season (subsequently his career involved a strange fluctuation). in Eastern Europe, Selim Bouadla was crowned Hungarian league winner with Debrecen twice in the 2011–12 and 2013–14 season, noting that La Liga and Serie A has not tasted the taste of any Algerian player so far and the nearest thing was the Runner-up in Serie A by Djamel Mesbah in 2012 and Faouzi Ghoulam in 2016. The English Premier League, was won by Riyad Mahrez with Leicester City. The 2012–13 season is considered the best for Algerian players, when they won 12 titles including three league, seven cups, three Super Cup and one league cup achieved by seven players are Djebbour, Soudani, Abdoun, Ghoulam, Rani, Sayoud and Benzia, In 2018–19, Riyad Mahrez achieved the English treble with Manchester City as the first Algerian to achieve this achievement. In the 2017–18 season, 161 Algerian players (including those of the diaspora who represent the national team) featured across all the leagues in Europe, and were present in 31 of the 55 leagues.
At the level of individual titles, Mahrez won the 2016 PFA Players' Player of the Year award. He was the first African to earn the accolade. Ali Benarbia also achieved the best player award in the French league with Girondins de Bordeaux. Sofiane Hanni also won the best player award in the Belgian league with Mechelen as the first Algerian player to achieve this award. El Arabi Hillel Soudani, with Dinamo Zagreb, also won his first trophy in Croatia as the best player in the Prva liga after a vote of all the captains of the Prva liga Croatian clubs. As for top scorers, only two Algerian players have achieved the title of top scorer of a league in Europe: Ahmed Oudjani in the French league and Jabbour in the Greek league. Madjer also won the title of top scorer in the European Cup in the 1987–88 season. Makhloufi is considered the best Algerian scorer in Europe with 170 goals, including 156 in the league, followed by Djebbour with 132 goals, of which 110 were in the league, and then Dahleb with 115 goals, including 102 in the league. For the most games played in leagues, there is Rachid Mekhloufi with 360 games, Abdelkader Ferhaoui with 343, Ryad Boudebouz with 328, Mustapha Dahleb with 321, and finally Mohamed Salem with 308 games. On the other hand, the record for most hat-tricks is held by Makhloufi with 9, all with Saint-Étienne, then Madjer with 5, and finally Ahmed Oudjani and El Arbi Hillel Soudani with 4 hat-tricks.
At the country level, Algerian players have won 61 titles in France: sixteen league, twenty-five cup, nine Coupe de la Ligue and eleven Trophée des Champions. After that comes Luxembourg with twenty titles: fourteen League and six cups, and finally Scotland with thirteen titles: five Premiership, four Cup and four League Cup. Other countries where Algerian players have won at least one title are the 17 states in the following figure: Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, England, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Romania, Switzerland, Czechoslovak and Turkey. With the beginning of the Algeria national team's sparkling form in 2009, Algerian players' shares began to rise in Europe, such as El Arbi Hillel Soudani, who moved from ASO Chlef to Vitória Guimarães of Portugal. There are also Islam Slimani from CR Belouizdad to Sporting CP, who then moved to Leicester City in the most expensive transfer deal for an Algerian player in history. The transfer fee paid to Sporting was reported as £28 million, a club record for Leicester. There is also the Paradou AC/JMG "El Ankaoui" Academy, which graduated many players to Europe, including Ramy Bensebaini, Youcef Attal, Haithem Loucif, Farid El Mellali and Hicham Boudaoui, who became the most expensive Algerian player to move from an Algerian club to Europe, at €4,000,000.
Gallery
Algerian descent players played for other national teams
Due to Algeria's historic ties with France, there have been a number of Algerian players playing professionally in the French leagues, while the France national team has included players of Algerian heritage, most notably Zinedine Zidane, Karim Benzema and Samir Nasri.
Zinedine Zidane () was born on 23 June 1972 in La Castellane, Marseille, in Southern France. Zidane is of Algerian Kabyle descent. His parents, Smaïl and Malika, emigrated to Paris from the village of Aguemoune in the Berber-speaking region of Kabylie in northern Algeria in 1953 before the start of the Algerian War. The family, which had settled in the city's tough northern districts of Barbès and Saint-Denis, found little work in the region Karim Benzema was born in the city of Lyon, France, to French nationals of Algerian descent. As a practicing Muslim, he observes fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. His grandfather, Da Lakehal Benzema, lived in the village of Tigzirt, located in the northern town of Beni Djellil in Algeria before migrating to Lyon, where he eventually settled in the 1950s. Benzema's father, Hafid, was born in Tigzirt, while his mother, Wahida Djebbara, was born and raised in Lyon; her family originated from Oran. Benzema is the third youngest in the family and grew up with eight other siblings in Bron, an eastern suburb of Lyon. His younger brothers Gressy and Sabri are also footballers. The former currently plies his trade at the amateur level with Vaulx-le-Velin in the Division d'Honneur, the sixth division of French football, while the latter plays in the youth academy of a club in the family's hometown of Bron. Samir Nasri () was born in Septèmes-les-Vallons, a northern suburb of Marseille, to French nationals of Algerian descent. His mother, Ouassila Ben Saïd, and father, Abdelhafid Nasri, were both born in France; his father being born and raised in Marseille, while his mother being from nearby Salon-de-Provence. Nasri's grandparents emigrated to France from Algeria. His mother is a housewife and his father previously worked as a bus driver before becoming his son's personal manager. At the start of his football career, Nasri initially played under his mother's surname, Ben Saïd, before switching to Nasri, his father's surname, following his selection to the France under-16 team. He is the eldest of four children and is a non-practising Muslim. Nabil Fekir had earned one cap at the under-21 level for his native France. Fekir had been named in his ancestral Algeria's squad for friendlies against Oman and Qatar in March 2015. However, he withdrew to take part in the French squad for friendlies against Brazil and Denmark. He made his debut on 26 March against the former at the Stade de France, replacing Antoine Griezmann for the final 16 minutes of a 1–3 defeat. He scored his first goal on 7 June, concluding a 3–4 home friendly defeat to Belgium. On 4 September, in a 1–0 away friendly win over Portugal, he ruptured three ligaments in his right knee, putting him out for an estimated six months. Karim Boudiaf () was born in France, and is of Moroccan-Algerian descent. On December 22, 2009, Boudiaf was called up to the Algeria Under-23 national team for a training camp in Algiers. Boudiaf acquired Qatari nationality and was called up to the Qatar national football team on November 13, 2013. He was capped in an unofficial friendly exhibition match against Saudi club Al Hilal. He made his official debut for the team on 25 December in the 2014 WAFF Championship in a 1–0 win against Palestine.