Manchester City will be out of action for several weeks now due to the extended international break which has been put in place due to the winter World Cup taking place in Qatar.
There will be plenty of players from City going to the tournament hoping to win the ultimate prize for their country whilst there are a couple of first-team players who will not be there.
One of them is winger Riyad Mahrez due to the fact that his country Algeria did not qualify for the finals after they lost the play-off game against Cameroon 3-1 over two legs.
However, he will still be on international duty.
Mahrez called up to international friendlies
Algeria have two games before the World Cup opener as they take on Mali and Sweden who are also not travelling to Qatar as they did not qualify.
So far this season Mahrez hasn't been consistent in an attacking sense as he has played 17 games in all competitions and only scored four goals with one of them being a penalty so he will be hoping to perform better for his nation.
For Algeria Mahrez has 76 caps with 26 goals and he will be hoping that he can add to that goals tally in these upcoming friendlies.
He only has one appearance in the World Cup though back in 2014 and at 31-years-old he may have missed the opportunity to play in another one which will take place in 2026 in North America.
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