Team
Tunisia
Only five days into the 2026 World Cup, and a managerial casualty has already occurred.
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The World Cup has already seen its first managerial casualty, with one coach losing his job following a poor start to the tournament.
Day four at the World Cup was high-scoring, with Germany putting seven past Curacao, the Netherlands and Japan playing out an entertaining 2-2 draw, and Sweden thrashing Tunisia in the later match.
Graham Potter’s side secured a 5-1 victory at Estadio Monterrey, with Alexander Isak and Viktor Gyokeres among the scorers.
Sabri Lamouchi to be sacked by Tunisia after Sweden hammering
It appears that defeat was too much for the Tunisian FA to overlook, as they decided to sack manager Sabri Lamouchi just hours later.
According to a report from talkSPORT, based on information from journalist Romain Molina, an official announcement is imminent. Wahbi Khazri is expected to step up as interim coach for the remainder of the tournament.
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Lamouchi was only hired in January of this year, but has struggled to get his team going. Indeed, Tunisia lost both of their pre-World Cup 2026 friendlies, including a 5-0 thrashing at the hands of Belgium.
The African nation has won just one game all year, a 1-0 victory against Haiti back in March.
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Speaking after the defeat to Sweden, Lamouchi said: "It’s a tough defeat, it’s painful to start the competition with such a heavy loss. We made far too many mistakes and, with world-class players like the two Swedish forwards, that’s unforgivable."
It is believed Mondher Kebaier is the frontrunner to be the long-term successor to Lamouchi, once the World Cup concludes.
Ironically, this is not the first time a Tunisia manager has been sacked mid-tournament. Henryk Kasperczak was fired after losing his first two games at the 1998 World Cup.
In the same tournament, South Korea head coach Cha Bum-kun was dismissed after heavy defeats to Mexico and the Netherlands in the group stages.
More recently, at AFCON 2024, Ivory Coast sacked Jean-Louis Gasset when it appeared he had failed to get them out of the group stages.
Incredibly, later results elsewhere meant Ivory Coast did actually qualify for the knockout stages, but Gasset was already gone by that point.
Jakob has over 11 years of experience in journalism across sports, entertainment, tech, and politics. Now a freelance news writer for FourFourTwo, he covers the biggest stories from the world of football.
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