Tunisia have sacked head coach Sabri Lamouchi after a 5-1 opening loss to Sweden at the 2026 World Cup. One game in, the tournament is already over as a competitive exercise for the North African side — and the federation didn't wait around to act on it.
Lamouchi took charge in January and lost three of his five games before Sunday's Group F collapse. He's gone. Hervé Renard — the Frenchman who has previous World Cup experience with Morocco and Saudi Arabia — steps in for the remaining games against Japan and the Netherlands.
Whether Renard can salvage anything meaningful is debatable. Tunisia's goal difference is already in a hole, and the group isn't forgiving. Anyone holding outright or group-stage progression bets on Tunisia should update their expectations accordingly.
This has happened before — all in 1998
Remarkably, Tunisia have form here. They're one of only three teams to have ever dismissed a head coach mid-World Cup, and all three instances happened in the same tournament: France 1998.
- Saudi Arabia sacked Carlos Alberto Parreira — the man who won the 1994 World Cup with Brazil — after a 4-0 defeat to France and a 1-0 loss to Denmark. Caretaker Mohammed Al-Kharashy oversaw a 2-2 draw with South Africa in the dead rubber.
- South Korea dismissed Cha Bum-kun after a 3-1 loss to Mexico and a 5-0 thrashing by the Netherlands. Caretaker Kim Pyung-seok got a 1-1 draw against Belgium.
- Tunisia parted with Polish coach Henryk Kasperczak following defeats to England (2-0) and Colombia (1-0). Replacement Ali Selmi drew 1-1 with Romania.
The pattern is consistent: elimination confirmed, one game left, manager out. In every case, the caretaker drew the final group match. None of it changed anything.
The one man who quit
Only one coach in World Cup history has resigned rather than been pushed. Scotland's Andy Beattie walked in 1954 — before Scotland had even played their second game — after a 1-0 loss to Austria. He'd already clashed with the Scottish FA over squad selection; they'd only let him pick 13 players. A selection committee took over and lost 7-0 to Uruguay.
Lamouchi's exit is the fourth mid-tournament sacking in World Cup history, and the second for Tunisia specifically. The pattern offers no encouragement: the replacement invariably steadies the ship just enough to draw a meaningless final group game. Renard is a more experienced appointment than the previous caretakers, but Tunisia's route to the knockout rounds just got a lot narrower than 5-1 suggests on paper.
