Tunisia Appoint Herve Renard to Replace Sacked Sabri Lamouchi
Renard takes charge after Tunisia sack Lamouchi following a 5-1 defeat to Sweden at World Cup 2026.
Tunisia have sacked head coach Sabri Lamouchi after their 5-1 World Cup loss to Sweden and appointed former Saudi Arabia coach Herve Renard until the end of the tournament.
Lamouchi, 54, only took charge in January and managed just five matches. He is now the first coach to be dismissed after a single game at a World Cup finals.
“The Federation Tunisienne de Football announces the termination of its contractual relationship with head coach Sabri Lamouchi by mutual agreement and wishes him every success in his future professional endeavours,” a statement from the FTF read.
Renard, 57, brings strong World Cup experience. He led Saudi Arabia to a surprise 2-1 win over eventual champions Argentina in Qatar and also coached Morocco in 2018.
“The Federation Tunisienne de Football announces the appointment of Herve Renard as coach of the national team until the end of the 2026 World Cup, to continue his duties starting this evening, with the same financial privileges,” the FTF confirmed on its official Instagram page.
“The agreement also states to open negotiations after the end of participation in the World Cup, for long-term cooperation based on specific sporting goals.”
Tunisia came into the tournament with big hopes after a solid qualifying campaign in which they did not concede a single goal. Lamouchi relied on his team’s defence in what is their third straight World Cup appearance.
But on Sunday, things went badly wrong. A double from Yasin Ayari and goals by Alexander Isak, Viktor Gyokeres and Mattias Svanberg gave Sweden a comfortable win.
The heavy defeat left the North African side bottom of Group F before matches against Japan and the Netherlands.
This is the second time Tunisia have changed their manager during a World Cup. In 1998, Henryk Kasperczak was sacked after two defeats at the finals in France.
Speaking after the defeat to Sweden, Lamouchi said the loss was “painful”.
“Starting the competition with this bad of a loss is indeed difficult,” he 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.”
AI contributed to the creation of this article.