During a stoppage in play Mahrez, shoulders hunched and hands upon hips, turned away, lost in contemplation. His Leicester teammate Islam Slimani offered a pat on the back but that was little help; Mahrez slouched off towards his perch on the right wing and Slimani, slamming his hands in frustration, returned to his own position. He knew, too.
As it happened, an injury-time goal from Sofiane Hanni gave Algeria some hope but it never looked like being enough. Losing 2-1 to Tunisia, their north African rivals, was painful in isolation but the bigger picture is that Algeria need a hugely favourable turn of events to transpire on matchday three if they are to reach the quarterfinals.
They must defeat in-form Senegal on Monday and hope that Zimbabwe, who held them to what looks a costly 2-2 draw four days ago, can go a step further and overcome the Tunisians without bettering Algeria's marginally superior goal difference. Any other combination and Georges Leekens' side, so highly fancied at the outset of this tournament, will head home next week.
That may be music to the ears of their club managers and particularly Leicester boss Claudio Ranieri, whose struggling squad has been stretched by the absence of Mahrez and Slimani. Yet the disappointment etched on the attacking pair's faces as they walked down the tunnel and, later, past the media in silence showed where their current focus lies.
It was left to another Premier League player, Watford midfielder Adlene Guedioura, to struggle for a more positive note as his teammates boarded their bus.
"It's important to pick ourselves up now," Guedioura said. "We're going to go there [to the Senegal game] with hope, even if it's going to be a very short chance of qualifying. But if we don't react, it's better to go home now. We want to go and finish with a good game and a win against Senegal."
It was hardly a rallying cry but Algeria's players could be excused for being in shock. They had played well enough in a first half that was, for half an hour at least, engagingly open. Slimani and Guedioura both came close before Mahrez shot a good opportunity too close to the Tunisia goalkeeper Aymen Mathlouthi. Had the ball been on Mahrez's left foot, the outcome would probably have been different.
"There's a lot of disappointment, for sure; we started very well in the first half," Guedioura said. "It was an opportunity and we left the game without any points."
Unfortunately for Algeria, attacking riches tend to mean little when a solid foundation is lacking. Mahrez had carried them through that slip-up against Zimbabwe, scoring twice while watching the minnows' pace cause trouble at the other end. While he was unable to repeat his own feats, Henri Kasperczak's Tunisia side found similar ways to expose their opponents.
If there was an element of ill-fortune for defender Aissa Mandi when he deflected Youssef Msakni's cross past his own goalkeeper to open the scoring, Tunisia's second goal was an example of the errors that have peppered Algeria's defensive play this week.
The culprit was Napoli left-back Faouzi Ghoulam, who misjudged a high ball and allowed Wahbi Khazri to run free. Ghoulam could only haul his opponent down, conceding a penalty and counting himself lucky to stay on the pitch. Sliti Naim's spot kick effectively won Tunisia the match.
"The first goal gave us a big blow," Guedioura said. "I think we tried to react, but when we tried to push forwards they got the penalty and that killed us. We tried to push again and didn't give up; you could see that."
The drop-off in Algeria's level was startling. The atmosphere in a sparsely-attended Stade de Franceville was hardly conducive to a white-hot derby but that was the same for both sides. Perhaps too much was expected from the "Fennec Foxes," who have only gone beyond the quarterfinals at a Nations Cup once in nine attempts since winning the tournament in 1990.
They undoubtedly have a number of technically excellent players -- perhaps West Ham midfielder Sofiane Feghouli, controversially left out of the squad by Leekens, would have been of use from the bench -- but evidence suggests that their squad simply does not have the balance of quality needed to go the distance in a major tournament.
You wonder what may be in store against Senegal, so exhilarating on the counter-attack, but there is some hope. The West African nation's straightforward 2-0 win over Zimbabwe, which directly followed Algeria's defeat, confirmed Senegal's status as winners of Group B.
That might be enough to persuade manager Aliou Cisse to rest some key players, including Sadio Mane. Yet even if Algeria win it is hard to see a pleasingly fluent Tunisia, for whom Sunderland's Khazri outshone the other England-based players on show, slipping up against a lively but porous Zimbabwe.
Stranger things have happened than the kind of turnaround that would revitalize Algeria's prospects; the odds, though, are on Mahrez and Slimani cutting disconsolate figures again on Monday.
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