Tunisia coach Sabri Ramsi will pay the price for their 5-1 defeat to Sweden in their opening Group F match at the 2026 World Cup.
Published June 15, 2026
Coach Sabri Lamouchi was sacked from the Tunisian national team after just one game in the 2026 World Cup.
The 54-year-old former France international was sacked on Sunday night, a day after Tunisia’s 5-1 victory over Sweden in their first Group F soccer match in Monterrey, Mexico.
Recommended stories
list of 4 itemsend of list
Tunisian authorities appointed Mondel Kebaya, who led the national team from 2019 to 2022 and held the role of technical director since last year, as interim coach ahead of the team’s second group match against Japan, also in Monterrey, early Sunday morning.
The 56-year-old previously led the Eagles of Carthage to the final of the 2021 Arab Cup, where they lost to Algeria and were eliminated in the quarter-finals of AFCON the following year.
Lamousi said before his departure that his team had been punished for a series of costly mistakes, and admitted after the game: “This is a tough loss. It hurts. It’s really difficult to start a tournament with such a bad loss.”
“We made too many mistakes.”
Ramusi was already under pressure after his team lost 5-0 to Belgium in their final warm-up match, while also having to defend his son’s presence in the media during the training camp despite not being an official member of the party.
“We have pride. We need to react. We need to give a better image,” Lamouchi said of Tunisia’s final two group games on Sunday against Japan and the Netherlands, who enjoyed a thrilling 2-2 draw in the opening game in Dallas.
Ramouchi, who has dual nationality in Tunisia and France, represented clubs such as Auxerre, Monaco, Parma, Inter and Marseille during his playing days, and led Ivory Coast to the 2014 World Cup as a manager for the first time, defeating Japan in the opening game, but suffering a dramatic late defeat to Greece in the final game and being eliminated in the group stage.
It was the second chapter of World Cup heartbreak for Ramouchi, who was left out of France’s final squad for the 1998 World Cup by coach Aimé Jacquet, missing out on Les Bleus’ historic place in winning their first title on home soil.
He was manager of Rennes and Nottingham Forest, before brief spells at Qatar, Cardiff City and Saudi Arabia, before joining Tunisia on a two-and-a-half year deal in January following a disappointing performance at the African Cup of Nations.
