Tunisia’s Torturous Tournament
Tunisia’s 2026 World Cup campaign is mercifully over and it will go down as one of the worst ever.
3 losses, 2 goals for, 12 goals against, -10 goal differential.
They became the 9th team ever to finish the World Cup with a goal differential of -10 or worse and the first to do it since 2010.
Out of those 8 other teams, which runs are most similar to Tunisia? Once we take out the 5 runs with a goal differential worse than -10 and Greece’s 0-goal -10 in 1994, there are actually 2 that look identical:
Mexico, 1978: 3 losses, 2 goals scored, 12 goals against and a -10 goal differential
New Zealand, 1982: 3 losses, 2 goals scored, 12 goals against and a -10 goal differential
Mexico 1978 was in Pot 2, Tunisia 2026 was in Pot 3 and New Zealand 1982 was Pot 4. By that logic alone, Mexico 1978 would be the worst of the 3, with Tunisia 2026 in 2nd worst, making them the 8th worst World Cup performance ever.
However, I think you could argue they’re as high as the 4th worst performance depending on how much you consider the advances in a team’s football program and their prior history.
