The Northern Africa squad is making its sixth World Cup appearance at Qatar and are no strangers to the international tournament, but they have never made it past the group stages. The ‘Eagles of Carthage’ last mayor achievement at an official competition was winning the African Cup of Nations back in 2004. Last year, Tunisia was the runner-up at the 2021 FIFA Arab Cup, and have been improving ever since. They didn’t have any mayor complications to obtain their ticket to Qatar as they toped the group at the African World Cup Qualifiers.
Tough Group To Be Making History
Group D is a very predictable group on paper, and even tough anything is possible in football, there is no denying than Tunisia is a victim in this group. The ‘Eagles of Carthage’ will be making their debut on Tuesday, November 22nd. against one of the group favourites, Denmark. After that they’ll get a precious opportunity to give their supporters a big reward, when they face an out of form Australia. On match-day 3 Tunisia will have to square off against the reigning champions France, and that is going to be probably the end of the road for the African team, but a good display of football and improvement has to be made, no matter what.
New Manager On The Rise
This squad has improved a lot since the arrival of their manager, Jalel Kadri, who was appointed as the senior squad coach on January 2022. Kadri has experience in the Tunisian and United Arab Emirates leagues, but his most valuable exposure to international football was during his two stints as assistant manager for the Tunisian National Team in 2013 and 2021. Kadri knows this team pretty well, since he has been involved one way or the other, but this challenge may be too much to handle.
Valuable Assets In their Squad
The leader for the Tunisian team is captain and winger, Youssef Msakni who plays for Qatari side Al-Arabi. Msakni has 87 caps for his home country (Most by current active playeres), along with 17 goals.
Two other very valuable assets this team has in its ranks is CM, Ellyes Skhiri who plays in the Bundesliga for FC Köln, and CAM Naïm Sliti, who plays for Saudi team Al-Ettifaq. The Tunisian squad has plenty of players with European club experience, which make them a very versatile group.
Victim Role May Suit Them
There is not much to lose for the ‘Eagles of Carthage’ so they will face the tournament with no pressure whatsoever and will have local support on some capacity. Its going to be very difficulty for them to make history and finally make it through the group stages since the draw didn’t went their way, but in this high stakes competitions there’s no reason to believe Tunisia will be an ‘easy’ opponent, expect them to grow in confidence as the tournament progresses, and they could give us several pleasant surprises.
