Tunisia have sacked head coach Sabri Lamouchi following their 5-1 World Cup defeat to Sweden and appointed former Saudi Arabia boss Herve Renard until the end of the tournament.
Lamouchi, 54, had only taken over in January and was in charge for just five matches, but has become the first coach to be dismissed after a single game of a World Cup finals.
“The Federation Tunisienne de Football announces the termination of its contractual relationship with head coach Sabri Lamouchi by mutual agreement and wishes him every success in his future professional endeavours,” a statement from the FTF read.
Renard, 57, will bring World Cup experience having led Saudi Arabia to a surprise 2-1 win over eventual champions Argentina in Qatar, and he also took charge of Morocco in 2018.
“The Federation Tunisienne de Football announces the appointment of Herve Renard as coach of the national team until the end of the 2026 World Cup, to continue his duties starting this evening, with the same financial privileges,” the FTF confirmed on its official Instagram page.
“The agreement also states to open negotiations after the end of participation in the World Cup, for long-term cooperation based on specific sporting goals.”
Tunisia had high hopes coming into the tournament on the back of a qualifying campaign in which they did not concede a single goal. Lamouchi banked on his team’s defence to stand firm in what is their third straight World Cup appearance.
But on Sunday, they suffered a rude awakening as a double by Yasin Ayari and strikes by Alexander Isak, Viktor Gyokeres and Mattias Svanberg secured a comfortable win for Sweden.
The thrashing left the north African side bottom of Group F ahead of matches against Japan and the Netherlands.
It is the second time that Tunisia have removed a manager during a World Cup after Henryk Kasperczak was sacked following two defeats at the finals in France in 1998.
Speaking after the defeat by Sweden, Lamouchi said the loss was “painful”.
“Starting the competition with this bad of a loss is indeed difficult,” he said.
“We made too many mistakes, and this is not something that we can do. We are shooting ourselves in the foot, we are hurting ourselves.”
App users: Click here to download the World Cup wall chart
