Tunisia sack Lamouchi one game into the World Cup after Sweden humiliation

Tunisia have sacked their head coach Sabri Lamouchi just one game into the 2026 World Cup, a brutal response to a 5-1 thrashing by Sweden in their Group F opener. The decision makes Lamouchi the first coach to lose his job while this tournament is still in progress, and it sets an unforgiving tone barely days into the competition.

The Tunisian Football Federation confirmed the dismissal on Monday, announcing on its official channels that an agreement had been reached to part ways with the Frenchman. Mondher Kebaier, a former national team boss, is set to take immediate interim charge as Tunisia try to salvage a campaign that has unravelled almost before it began.

A night that fell apart fast

The result that ended Lamouchi's reign was as one-sided as the scoreline suggests. Sweden, under Graham Potter, were ruthless, with Alexander Isak running the show on a night of one goal and two assists and Viktor Gyokeres adding to the damage. For Tunisia, it was the kind of opening performance that leaves a federation with little appetite for patience, and the axe fell with the full-time whistle barely cold.

Lamouchi's tenure was strikingly short, spanning only a handful of matches in charge of the national side. To be appointed, taken to a World Cup, and removed inside a single tournament game is a remarkable sequence even by the cut-throat standards of international management, and it speaks to how heavily the federation had invested its hopes in a competitive showing.

What now for Tunisia

The timing could hardly be harder. Tunisia still have to face Japan and the Netherlands in Group F, two of the most dangerous sides in their section, and they must do so with an interim coach who has had no time to prepare and a squad reeling from a heavy defeat and the sudden loss of its manager. Qualification from the group already looks a steep climb.

Kebaier, who has worked with the national team before, at least brings familiarity rather than a complete reset, and that continuity may be exactly why the federation turned to him. But the task in front of him is daunting: steady a shaken group, find a system that can contain elite opponents, and do it on a few days' notice in the glare of a World Cup. Whether this is the jolt that revives Tunisia or simply the start of a longer collapse will be answered quickly, and the rest of the tournament will be watching how a team responds to losing its leader at the worst possible moment.