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The World Cup has thrown up its first managerial casualty already, with one coach losing his job after an embarrassing start to the competition.
It was a high-scoring day four at the World Cup, with Germany putting seven past Curacao and the Netherlands and Japan playing out an entertaining 2-2 draw, before Sweden put Tunisia to the sword in the later kick-off.
Graham Potter's side delivered a 5-1 hammering at Estadio Monterrey, with Alexander Isak and Viktor Gyokeres among the goals.
Sabri Lamouchi to be sacked by Tunisia after Sweden hammering
It seems that defeat was just too much for Tunisia's FA to look past, with the decision made to sack manager Sabri Lamouchi hours later.
According to a report from talkSPORT based on information from journalist Romain Molina, an official announcement is imminent. Wahbi Khazri is set to step up as interim coach for the remainder of the tournament.
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 demolition at the hands of Belgium.
The African nation has won just one game all year, a 1-0 victory against Haiti back in March.
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 is over.
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 Netherlands in the group stages.
More recently, at AFCON 2024, Ivory Coast sacked Jean-Louis Gasset when it looked like 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.
