A talented football player, Algerian Mohamed Kheddis joined NA Hussein Dey’s senior squad at the age of only 17 and stayed with them as a player, and later team captain, until his retirement in 1982, after experiencing several health problems. Along the way, one of his team’s most notable achievements was runner-up placing at the 1978 African Cup Winners’ Cup. He joined the Algerian national team at the age of 19, one of the youngest players ever to do so, and made a total of 67 international appearances through 1980, including five World Cup Qualifiers and three matches at the 1980 Summer Olympics. In the latter he participated in one winning and two losing games in a tournament that saw Algeria eliminated in the quarter-finals. He took up coaching for his former team after retiring and began to climb through the administrative ranks, eventually becoming its president in April 2005. He also held several positions at the national level, and was particularly active in selecting members for the national youth squad until his death from cardiac arrest at the age of 56 in 2008. His son, Sid Ahmed, has also played for Hussein Dey almost continuously since 2003.
Algeria