There are feel-good stories at every World Cup, but Nabil Bentaleb’s presence in the Algeria squad for World Cup 2026 goes well beyond anything that usually qualifies for that category. Twelve months ago, the question wasn’t whether Bentaleb would make it to a World Cup. The question was whether he would play football again at all.
In June 2024, during a recreational kickabout in the off-season, Bentaleb suffered a cardiac arrest. He was rushed to hospital, treated successfully, and came out of it alive. That outcome alone, given the circumstances, was already the most important result. But Bentaleb, a former Spurs, Schalke, and Newcastle midfielder who had represented Algeria at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, wasn’t ready to accept that his career was over. He had a defibrillator fitted under his skin, received medical clearance to return to competitive football, and started building his way back.
The moment that confirmed his comeback was real came at the Roazhon Park stadium in Rennes on 16 February 2025. Bentaleb came on as a second-half substitute for Lille in a Ligue 1 match and, within a few minutes, scored to give his side a 2-0 lead. It wasn’t his most technically spectacular goal, not even close. But the raw emotion that followed it said everything about what he’d been through to get to that moment. Eight months of rehabilitation, a cardiac arrest, a defibrillator, and there he was, scoring in professional football again.
Then-Lille coach Bruno Genesio described it at the time as something out of a film. He wasn’t wrong. Former coach at the club or not, very few people in football had expected Bentaleb to be back on a pitch at all, let alone scoring important goals and earning a return to the national team setup.
His route back to Algeria’s squad wasn’t entirely smooth. He missed AFCON in December following the cardiac arrest, which was understandable given where he was in his recovery. Algeria went out in the quarter-finals and the team’s performance left room for changes. Bentaleb finished the Lille season strongly, and earned a warm-up cap against the Netherlands where he played the full 90 minutes and added a technical assist to his contribution. That performance convinced coach Vladimir Petkovic to include him for North America.
Algeria open their Group J campaign against world champions Argentina in Kansas City on 16 June, the kind of fixture that doesn’t give anyone the luxury of easing in slowly. Whether Bentaleb starts or comes off the bench, his very presence in that squad is the kind of story that deserves to be watched rather than just read about. A quality IPTV subscription covering all 104 World Cup 2026 matches live means you won’t miss a moment if he steps onto that pitch.
Football occasionally produces stories that make the sport feel bigger than just results and league tables. Nabil Bentaleb at the 2026 World Cup, two years after a cardiac arrest, is one of those stories, and it’s only just getting started.