Algeria – It’s Bigger Than Texas And They’re Coming To Getcha

But not if Landon Donovan, Tim Howard, Clint Dempsey and their USA team mates have anything to say about it. Tomorrow at the World Cup in South Africa, team USA plays Algeria for a place in the round of 16. It’s squeaky butt time. Who are these Algeria guys?

Officially the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in North Africa. In terms of land area, it is the largest country on the Mediterranean Sea, the second largest on the African continent after Sudan, and the eleventh-largest country in the world at 930,000 square miles, 3.5 times bigger than Texas and it has an estimated population of about 35.7 million

Algeria is bordered in the northeast by Tunisia, in the east by Libya, in the west by Morocco, in the southwest by Western Sahara Territory, Mauritania, and Mali, in the southeast by Niger, and in the north by the Mediterranean Sea. The capital of Algeria is Algiers.

Skimming over the history of Algeria could not do it justice, their history is as vast as the land within it’s borders. Like all countries and territories in North Africa and the Middle East, theirs is a tale of invasion and occupation. The Carthaginians established settlements along the coast. The Roman and Ancient Greeks also called it home for a while. The indigenous peoples of northern Africa eventually coalesced into a distinct native population, the Berbers.

When the Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476 AD, Berbers became independent again in many regions, while the Vandals took control over other areas, where they remained until expelled by the Byzantine general Belisarius under the direction of Emperor Justinian I. The Byzantine Empire then retained a precarious grip on the east of the country until the coming of the Arabs and the armies of Islam in the eighth century.

The Otterman Turks came calling in the 1500s, the Barbary Pirates called the port of Algiers one of their homes for many years and the French invaded in 1830 and stayed for over 100 years, 17 of the 23 players on the Algerian squad were born in France, they have Algerian parents.

The instability of the past 20 years seems to be leveling out, but history is not on Algeria’s side. And this week neither am I. Go USA.

The US Team prepares to invade Algeria

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