Sunday brought a tale of mixed fortunes for Celtic’s Sebastian Tounekti and Benjamin Nygren as they took to the World Cup stage in Monterrey, Mexico.
While Nygren enjoyed his Sweden side putting on a spectacular show by scoring five goals in their World Cup opener, it was a horror start for Tounekti and his Tunisia side.
Introduced in the 72nd minute with Graham Potter’s side commanding a 3-1 lead, the Celtic winger was on the pitch before two further late goals really piled on the agony for Sabri Lamouchi’s men.
As you can imagine, the Tunisian media weren’t too pleased with their team’s performance, and just like Tounekti witnessed at Celtic, he could now have a change of manager at the national level.
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Sabri Lamouchi facing the axe after Tunisia get thumped by Sweden at the World Cup
Back in October, Brendan Rodgers left Celtic in a brutal fashion, with Dermot Desmond publicly telling him just how he felt about the Irishman.
Tounekti was only a few months into his Celtic tenure back then, and he is still pretty new to the international set-up with 13 caps.
But Tunisia could be going down the Desmond route, if reports are to be true.
Tunisian outlet Kawarji have claimed that Lamouchi could depart his role midway through the World Cup following their heavy loss to Sweden.
It has been claimed that the Tunisian Football Federation has expressed its ‘dissatisfaction’ at what they are witnessing, including a nightmare preparation, which included losing to ten-man Austria and getting pumped by Belgium.
There is now a meeting set to take place to determine Lamouchi’s future.
How did Tounekti rate against Sweden?
Tounekti didn’t start Tunisia’s warm-up matches, so it wasn’t a surprise to see him on the bench against Sweden.
It has been a talking point in Glasgow that Tounekti is better from the bench, with Tunisie Numérique claiming that Lamouchi’s 4-2-3-1 formation ‘quickly put Tunisia under pressure.’
They noted the changes in the second half, including the introduction of Tounekti, which added ‘freshness and more speed.’
But the Tunisian outlet felt that it didn’t fix the ‘underlying problems.’
Nonetheless, Sofascore rated Tounekti’s performance at 6.3:
- Minutes played: 18
- Touches: 8
- Unsuccessful touches: 1
- Passes in the opposition half: 3/3 (100%)
- Successful dribbles: 0/2
- Carries: 6
- Progressive carries: 3
- Sofascore rating: 6.3
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