CR Belouizdad

CR Belouizdad signed Hacène Lalmas in its founding year, 1962, and kept him until 1973 — long enough that Algerians still call him the finest player the country ever produced. He arrived at a side barely off the ground: the club had come together on 15 July 1962, ten days after Algeria's independence, when Widad Riadhi de Belcourt and Club Athlétique de Belcourt merged into one team in red and white.

The nickname Le Grand Chabab followed that side through four league titles between 1965 and 1972, then sat quiet for a quarter of a century before the championship returned in 1997, 2000 and 2001. It went quiet again, longer this time, until 2020, 2021 and 2022 brought three in a row — the first of those awarded after the season was cut short by the pandemic rather than finished on the pitch.

The Algerian Cup has rewarded patience more evenly, with wins spread from 1966 to 2024 and no other club in the country holding as many. In continental competition the club has reached the quarter-finals of the CAF Champions League three seasons running, from 2020-21 to 2022-23, without yet pushing past that stage.

Locally, the fixture that matters most is against MC Algiers, played across the city as the Big Derby; the meeting with neighbouring NA Hussein Dey carries its own name, the Belcourt derby, a reminder of the district the club was built in.

Nine Algerian Cups sit in the club's history — more than any other side in the country has managed.