RIO DE JANEIRO, July 1 -- Though Algeria and Nigeria were defeated on Monday, the African teams could somehow bid farewell with their heads held high after contributing to several good games at the Brazil World Cup.

During the latest Africa-Europe clashes, two European powerhouses met unexpected challenges and struggled for their wins, France needing late goals to see off African champion Nigeria 2-0 and Germany only securing their 2-1 victory over Algeria in extra time.

Even German coach Joachim Low highly praised Algeria, which played in their first round of 16 match ever, saying "I know that they are motivated when playing with us, they were very fast and physically strong, which gave us lots of pressure."

"The Algerians did a good job; they disrupted us from the start and didn't let us get into our game," German player Andre Schurrrle said.

In fact, the Desert Foxes had already impressed the world - in its opening defeat against Belgium and 4-2 victory over South Korea, playing some clinical, counterattacking football.

"We're part of Algerian football history, no other team went so far and we showed we can play on equal footing at the highest level. We really want to build on this and push on," said Algeria goalkeeper Rais Mbolhi, who was awarded the man of the match as he denied numerous threats from Germany.

Africa has been competing at the World Cup since 1934 with the best achievements being quarter-final places for Cameroon, Senegal and Ghana. And altogether six teams managed to reach the knock-out stage.

Yet this World Cup should be the best one for them in a way: for the first time, more than one of the continent's representatives had reached the second round.

The other three African teams, namely Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana, had been knocked out at a group stage.

So far at this World Cup, all African and Asian teams have packed their luggage.

But there are differences between the two losing continents.

People ascribed the Asians' defeat to the competition system, the training and organization, whereas the Africans' was mainly caused by its poor economic and social conditions.

This may explain why player disgruntlement over unpaid bonuses has followed the African teams around Brazil. Of the five African teams in Brazil, three of them had their World Cup journey affected by pay problems.

Cameroon refused to travel to the tournament until their better demands for better bonuses were met, and the Ghanian President had to fly millions in cash to Brazil to ensure the team didn't boycott the decisive group game against Portugal.

Most recently, Nigeria canceled a training session also due to money issue.

But money didn't help them win the game. Cameroon lost all three games, scored just one goal and was shamed when defender Benoit Assou-Ekotto thrust his head into the face of teammate Benjamin Moukandjo against Croatia. Ghana also managed just one point against the United States, Germany and Portugal

All of this pushed the world soccer governing body FIFA to find ways to solve money problems ahead of the World Cup from now on.

"What we have to do for future World Cup is to ensure that firstly there is an agreement between the players and their national associations for the payments of bonuses," said FIFA secretary general Jerome Valvke.