TUNIS, Tunisia, Jun 16 – Former Morocco and Saudi Arabia manager Herve Renard has been appointed as the head coach of Tunisia until the end of World Cup following the sacking of Sabri Lamouchi after opening 5-1 World Cup defeat to Sweden.
Lamouchi’s departure means he is the first manager in World Cup history to be sacked after just one game.
Reports after that loss suggested Lamouchi had been immediately sacked but sources reported that the 54-year-old took training on yesterday.
However, the Tunisian Football Association has now confirmed that the Frenchman’s contract has been terminated by mutual agreement.
Tunisia sacked manager Henryk Kasperczak after a poor start during their 1998 World Cup campaign, which saw the side fail to win either of their first two matches.
Cha Bum-Kun was dismissed by South Korea during the same tournament after defeats in their first two matches, while Julen Lopetegui was sacked by Spain two days before the start of the 2018 World Cup after agreeing to become Real Madrid manager.
But this is the first time a manager has lost his job after just one World Cup match and it brings to an end Lamouchi’s five-month stint in charge of Tunisia.
The former Nottingham Forest boss was only appointed in January replacing Sami Trabelsi, who left his role following a last-16 defeat to Mali at the Africa Cup of Nations.
Speaking after the defeat by Sweden, Lamouchi said the loss was “painful”.
“Starting the competition with this bad of a loss is indeed difficult,” Lamouchi 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.”
The 54-year-old won just one of his five games as Tunisia head coach – a 1-0 victory over Haiti in his first game in charge.
In their two warm-up games for the World Cup earlier this month, they lost 1-0 to Austria before suffering a 5-0 thrashing by Belgium.
Tunisia face Japan and Netherlands in their remaining Group F fixtures.
