Tunisia have decided enough is enough. After just one match at the World Cup, Sabri Lamouchi has been shown the door. A 5 1 defeat to Sweden was not j...
Tunisia have decided enough is enough. After just one match at the World Cup, Sabri Lamouchi has been shown the door. A 5 1 defeat to Sweden was not just a bad day at the office. It was a collapse so complete it triggered a reckoning before the tournament had even reached its second round of group fixtures.You have to ask yourself what went wrong. Lamouchi set his team up to sit deep, to absorb pressure and hit on the break. For about twenty minutes the plan worked. Tunisia looked compact, disciplined, exactly what you expect from a side that prides itself on defensive solidity. Then the roof caved in. Sweden, sensing the low block was full of holes, poured through the middle. Clinical finishing turned a credible game plan into a full blown rout. Five goals conceded. Your tournament is over before you have played your next game.Football moves fast. Faster than ever. The Tunisia Football Federation did not wait for a review. They did not give Lamouchi a second chance to find tactical flexibility. They saw the evidence on the pitch and made a brutal decision. Some will call it panic. Others will call it accountability. When a national team ships five goals in a World Cup opener, the manager always looks like a dead man walking.The big question now is what comes next. You cannot rip up the squad. You cannot sign new players. All you can do is slap a temporary armband on the coaching staff and hope the damage is not permanent. The players looked shell shocked after the fourth goal went in. Their transitions were sloppy. Their belief evaporated in that Swedish heat. For the Tunisian fans who travelled thousands of miles, this is a bitter pill. They watched their team get taken apart by a side that is far from a superpower.You wonder if Lamouchi ever truly had control. From the outside, it looked like a squad stuck between styles. Not quite organised enough to defend, not brave enough to attack. The sacking will not fix the defensive lapses or the lack of creativity in the final third. But it sends a message. We will not stand for this. Not here. Not now. The rest of the football world will watch with interest to see if the shock therapy works or if the tournament is simply a long, slow death.
