Four years after winning its first game at the World Cup since 1978, Tunisia will look to beat the odds and advance finally beyond the group stage. It opened its World Cup with a scoreless draw against Denmark.
After qualifying for three straight World Cups from 1998 to 2006, then missing out on back-to-back tournaments, the Tunisians marked their return four years ago in Russia with losses to England and Belgium and a 2-1 win over Panama. That experience on the World Cup stage, however, hasn’t translated to much success regionally: Since winning the Africa Cup of Nations in 2004, Tunisia has made it past the quarterfinals just once in nine appearances (a fourth-place finish in 2019). The Eagles of Carthage punched their ticket to Qatar by topping Mali, 1-0 on aggregate, in the final round of Africa’s World Cup qualifying campaign.
