Published on 6/16/2026
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Last update: 16:17 (Mecca time)
French coach of Tunisian origin, Sabri Lamouchi, joined a short list of coaches who were dismissed from their positions during the World Cup.
Lamouchi (54 years old) was dismissed in the last few hours from coaching the Tunisian national team, after the harsh defeat suffered by the “Eagles of Carthage” against Sweden 1-5 in the match that took place yesterday, Monday, for the first round of the sixth group matches of the 2026 World Cup.
Lamouchi was dismissed from his job five months after his appointment, specifically last January, and the Tunisian Football Federation assigned the task to French coach Hervé Renard.
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During his short experience, Lamouchi led the Tunisian national team in 5 matches (4 of which were friendly), winning one, drawing one and losing three, during which the Carthage Eagles conceded 11 times while the players scored only two goals, according to data from the famous Transfermarkt website.
Results of the 5 matches of the Tunisian national team during the Lamouchi era:
- Haiti 0-1 Tunisia (friendly).
- Canada 0-0 Tunisia (friendly).
- Austria 1-0 Tunisia (friendly).
- Belgium 5-0 Tunisia (friendly).
- Sweden 5-1 Tunisia (first round of the group stage of the 2026 World Cup).
Fifth in history
Lamouchi became the fifth coach in history to be fired in the midst of a World Cup tournament, as four coaches preceded him to this fate, according to the French newspaper Le Parisien.
She commented: “Despite the disastrous outcome for Tunisia during the Lamouchi era, the most striking thing undoubtedly remains the timing of the dismissal,” in an explicit reference to its occurrence despite the Arab team’s continuation in the tournament.
Coaches who were dismissed from their positions during the World Cup:
Polish Henry Kasprzak
The Tunisian national team lived through a previous experience 28 years ago, specifically in the 1998 World Cup in France, when its Polish coach, Kasprzak, was dismissed from his position after losing in the first two matches in Group G to England (2-0) and Colombia (1-0). He followed the third match on television, in which Tunisia tied 1-1 against Romania, led by interim coach Ali Al-Selmi.
South Korean Cha Beom-kwon
Another coach whose adventure ended early in the 1998 World Cup in France, but this time with his country’s national team.
The South Koreans suffered two heavy defeats against Mexico, 1-3, and then the Netherlands, 0-5, in the first two matches in Group Five. These were results that the local federation could not comprehend, so it immediately decided to dismiss Beom-kwon.
In its third match, the South Korean team tied with Belgium 1-1, led by another local coach, Byung-Seok Kim.
Brazilian Carlos Alberto Pereira
It seems that the 1998 World Cup in France was a tournament for early dismissals of coaches, as the experienced Brazilian was the third to leave his position before the World Cup mission ended.
Pereira, who led Brazil to win the 1994 World Cup, took over as coach of the Saudi national team in the next edition, in which the “Greens” suffered two defeats, the first to Denmark 0-1 before a resounding defeat to the host country’s national team by a clean score in a match in which the star Zinedine Zidane was expelled, in the third group.
After Pereira’s dismissal, the Saudi national team played its third match against South Africa, led by local coach Mohammed Al-Kharashi, which ended in a 2-2 draw.
Spain’s Julen Lopetegui
He is the most unusual case among his counterparts, as he was dismissed from his position as coach of Spain hours before the team’s first match of the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
Lopetegui, the current coach of the Qatari national team, paid the price for secretly negotiating with Real Madrid to coach the team after the World Cup, which was officially announced by “Merengue” on June 12, 2018. As a result, Luis Rubiales, president of the Spanish Federation at the time, decided to dismiss him immediately, even before the first match against Portugal in Group B, and appoint Fernando Hierro as his successor.
