Tunisia

The literal custodian of the story Tunisia carried into this tournament: ten qualifying matches, not a goal conceded, and Dahmen behind almost all of it. He is the projected No. 1 for the Monterrey opener and the man through whom the whole defensive identity runs, a goalkeeper of the modern Tunisian school who stays on his line, commands his box and trusts the block in front of him rather than sweeping behind it. At 29 he is in the settled middle of a goalkeeper's career, a second World Cup after Qatar and, in all likelihood, the platform on which his reputation rests. The complication is recent and loud. Chamakh, not Dahmen, started both June friendlies, and Dahmen watched five go past his deputy in Brussels a week before kickoff; the projection that he returns for Sweden is exactly that, a projection, and how he carries the aftermath of that night into the group is one of the quieter questions of Tunisia's tournament. His club season unfolded back home at Sfaxien rather than in Europe, the precise numbers undocumented in the local capture, but his standing as the keeper of the qualifying clean sheets is not in doubt.

Nominally the understudy, Chamakh arrives having played more recent minutes than the man ahead of him: Lamouchi handed him the gloves for both June friendlies, including the 5-0 in Brussels that will not have been the audition he wanted. At 24 and with only a couple of caps, he is a goalkeeper still establishing himself at Club Africain and on the national stage, his selection a vote in the youth and the future rather than the present pecking order. Whether the Belgium night was a managed look at an alternative or a genuine challenge to Dahmen is one of the small uncertainties Lamouchi has kept to himself; either way, a first World Cup at his age is exposure and education more than expectation.

The third goalkeeper, and on every reasonable reading the one least likely to play unless something goes badly wrong ahead of him. Ben Hassen keeps for Étoile du Sahel in the Tunisian top flight, a domestic option to round out the three-deep goalkeeping unit rather than a contender for the shirt. His World Cup is the camp, the training drills and the bench, the experience of a tournament from the inside that may matter more for whatever comes after than for anything in North America itself.

With Meriah and his ninety-odd caps left at home, Talbi is the unquestioned organiser of a back line shorn of its experience, the man who sets the line, attacks the crosses and steps out to cover when the full-backs go. He is one of the three Ligue 1 players in the spine, a regular starter at Lorient through the season, and at 28 he sits in the heart of his peak with a 2022 World Cup already behind him, which makes him a survivor of the era this squad has otherwise dismantled and the bridge between it and the renewal. That experience is now load-bearing in a way it was not in Qatar: he must rebuild a central partnership at speed after being badly exposed in Brussels, before he meets the movement of Gakpo and the runners of Sweden and Japan. At the other end he is the chief aerial threat on the set pieces that are so often Tunisia's safest route to a goal, arriving on Abdi's deliveries with Bronn and Skhiri. For a side that has handed its leadership from a hundred caps to sixty, Talbi is much of the steadying ballast that remains.

One of the few genuine tournament veterans Lamouchi kept, Bronn is the experienced alternative at the left of central defence, the partnership beside Talbi he contests with the younger Rekik, who started both June friendlies. At 30 and with more than fifty caps, he is a defender past his peak but still useful for exactly the reasons a young back line needs him, a body who has seen this stage before and can be trusted to read a cross and hold a position when the block is under siege. He plays his club football at Servette in Switzerland, a settled veteran's berth rather than a shop window. His World Cup may come down to whether Lamouchi values Rekik's left-footed build-up or Bronn's experience more highly when the margins are thin, and in a group this physical the case for the older head can be made on any given day.

The one full-back who pushes high and overlaps, Abdi is Tunisia's main escape route down the left, the player who turns a defensive recovery into a counter and the deliverer of the set pieces Talbi and Skhiri attack. At 32 he is the senior man in the back line, a 2022 World Cup veteran in the last clear stretch of his international career, and his presence carries a measure of the tournament memory this squad otherwise lacks. He has been a Ligue 1 regular at Nice through the season, part of the French-based spine, and for Tunisia he plays a more conservative game than his club role, holding his shape until the moment to burst forward arrives. With seven international goals to his name he offers a little more going forward than a full-back's brief usually implies, which matters all the more for a team that struggles to manufacture chances. This is, in all likelihood, his final World Cup, and one of the few places where experience and attacking threat sit in the same player.

The projected right-back, Valery is the conservative counterweight to Abdi's adventure on the other flank, a defender who holds his depth and supports the second phase rather than overlapping early, content to leave the width to Achouri ahead of him. At 27 he is entering his best years, a diaspora pick who came up through the Southampton academy in England before settling at Young Boys in Switzerland, where a season of regular European football has sharpened him. His place is live rather than locked: Arous started ahead of him at right-back against Belgium, and the channel he patrols is precisely where Tunisia were torn open in Brussels, so his task in the opener is as much about not being isolated as about anything he does going forward. A first World Cup at the back end of his twenties, and a chance to make a tournament case the club game has not quite handed him.

The form pick at the left of central defence, Rekik started both June friendlies beside Talbi and is projected to keep the shirt for the opener ahead of the more experienced Bronn, valued for the left-footed balance and the carrying he brings to the build-out. At 24 and with only a handful of caps he is emerging rather than established, a defender whose international career is still being written, and his elevation into the starting picture is part of the same youth gamble that runs through the whole squad. The brother of a more famous footballer, he plays his club game at Maribor in Slovenia after a winding path through the academies of northern Europe. The Belgium night was a brutal early lesson in the level, and how he absorbs it will say much about whether the trust placed in him was foresight or haste, but a first World Cup at his age is a stage to grow into rather than to be measured against.

A versatile defender who can fill in across the back line, Ben Hamida played at left-back against Belgium and offers cover on either flank, the kind of squad utility a manager wants from his eleventh or twelfth defender. At 30 he is a settled professional rather than a rising one, a fixture at Espérance, the grandest of the Tunis clubs, where domestic and continental football have kept him sharp. His dozen or so caps mark him as a depth selection, a body for the bench and the rotation in a squad deliberately heavy on defenders, and his World Cup is most plausibly spent in that supporting role, ready if the injuries or the cards force Lamouchi's hand.

One of the youngest defenders in the squad, Neffati is a developmental pick, a 21-year-old with a small clutch of caps brought along for the experience as much as for any expectation of minutes. He plays in Sweden, at Norrköping, a curious footnote given Tunisia's opening opponent, and his selection fits the wider pattern of a manager casting wide across the diaspora for the future. This is squad depth in the truest sense, a young defender getting a first taste of a World Cup environment with his best tournaments, if they come, still some years off.

A young right-back who pushed his way into the friendly picture, Arous started at right-back against Belgium ahead of Valery, which is either a genuine selection question or a manager taking a look at a 21-year-old in low-stakes minutes. He plays in Turkey, at Kasımpaşa, a fairly senior club berth for a defender so early in his career, and his single cap before this window marks how new he is to the international fold. The Brussels night was an unforgiving introduction, with Tunisia's right flank repeatedly isolated, but the experience of a World Cup squad at his age is the point of his inclusion, whatever his share of the minutes.

The rawest member of the back line, Chikhaoui is a 21-year-old yet to win a senior cap at the time of selection, a developmental call-up plucked from the Tunisian league at US Monastir. His inclusion is a bet on potential and a sign of how far Lamouchi reached into the next generation when he built this squad, and his World Cup is the camp, the training and the immersion rather than any realistic expectation of the pitch. One for the future, given an early look at the very top of the game.

Tunisia's captain and the on-pitch embodiment of the zero-conceded run, Skhiri is the deepest midfielder and the shield in front of the back four, the press-resistant pivot who receives on the half-turn, breaks up the transition, screens the central lanes and calms whatever he touches. He inherits the leadership that Sassi used to carry without anything like Sassi's caps, and with the defence suddenly looking fragile his ability to clog the middle is much of what stands between Tunisia and a repeat of Brussels. He is a Bundesliga regular for Eintracht Frankfurt, where the season brought around a thousand league minutes, no goals or assists and a red card in January, the unglamorous ledger of a pure destroyer and recycler rather than a creator. In his early thirties and at the height of his powers, he is the senior figure of the renewal and the bridge to the era that came before, a midfielder whose value never appears in the goal columns and whose absence would be felt immediately. This is the World Cup on which his captaincy, and the gamble of handing him the armband over a hundred-cap predecessor, will be judged.

Lamouchi builds the attack around him, and the whole counter leans on his first touch and his forward pass the instant Tunisia regain the ball: Hannibal is the creative link, the man who drops off the front, collects under pressure, carries through the lines and releases the runners. At 23 this is his first World Cup, and he is the face of the youth reset, the player to whom the creative identity has been handed in a generational handoff from the 30-something captain of the last cycle to a footballer barely a third of the way through his career. The freedom Tunisia give him exceeds anything his club asks, and so does the risk that comes with it. He has just completed a full first season as a Premier League starter for Burnley, twenty-seven appearances, a goal and four assists and around 1,200 minutes, a real step up from the bit-part Manchester United and loan years, though the season ended in relegation and he collected ten yellow cards along the way. That booking habit is a genuine warning in a group this physical: a Hannibal suspended or subdued is a Tunisia with no obvious way to turn defence into attack, which is exactly why so much of the tournament rests on his temperament as well as his talent.

The late coup of the squad and the most intriguing of its diaspora additions, Khedira is a German-born, German-raised midfielder, the brother of a World Cup winner, who arrives to give the engine room a body it did not have: a box-to-box presence beside Skhiri, projected to start, bringing Bundesliga steel and pressing intensity to a midfield that was light on it. At 32 he is a seasoned professional in the veteran phase of his career, a settled fixture at Union Berlin where he has been a regular in a side that has held its own in the upper reaches of the German game. His handful of Tunisia caps tell their own story: this is a brand-new international relationship, an experiment in integration begun barely months before the tournament, and the June friendlies suggested the gelling is incomplete. The pairing with Skhiri carries real promise on paper, two physically credentialed European midfielders shielding the back four, but Brussels showed how much work remains to make it cohere, and for Khedira this is a first and almost certainly only World Cup, embraced late in a career that took the long road to it.

A box-to-box midfielder with more attacking license than the men ahead of him in the pecking order, Ben Slimane started as an advanced midfielder against Austria and offers Lamouchi a different flavour in the centre, the alternative to Khedira when the side needs legs and a goal threat from deep. At 25 he is entering his prime, an established international with forty caps and a useful four goals among them, and he plays his club football in the English Championship at Norwich. His is a rotation role rather than a guaranteed start, but in a squad short of attacking midfield options he is a useful card to hold, the kind of player who can change a game's complexion if Tunisia ever find themselves needing to chase it.

A creative, left-footed midfielder who started both June friendlies, Gharbi is one of the brighter attacking talents of the renewal, a 22-year-old shaped in the Paris youth system and the French and Iberian game, picked to add invention to a side that lacks it. His tournament begins under a cloud: he was sent off in the 62nd minute against Belgium, a second yellow for a foul on Doku, and whether that friendly dismissal carries into the group stage is unconfirmed, a live availability question as much as a flag of youthful indiscipline under pressure. His club affiliation is itself unsettled in the local record, with La Presse and L'Équipe listing different employers, so it is left out here rather than stated wrongly. What is clear is the profile and the promise: a first World Cup at an age when most of the story is still ahead, and a chance, suspension permitting, to show why Lamouchi trusted him in both warm-up games.

A central midfielder who featured in the Belgium friendly, Hadj Mahmoud is rotation depth in the engine room, an option to sit alongside Skhiri or cover the deeper roles when the manager shuffles his pack. At 26 he is in the working middle of his career, plying his trade at Lugano in Switzerland, and his modest cap total marks him as a squad man rather than a fixture. His World Cup is most plausibly spent competing for minutes off the bench, a useful body in a midfield that needed numbers after the cull of the old guard.

A versatile defensive midfielder who can also cover at the back, Ben Ouanes is one of the more senior figures among the squad's depth players, a 31-year-old in the veteran stretch of his career brought for his experience and his ability to plug more than one role. He plays in Turkey at Kasımpaşa, a settled professional's berth, and his seventeen or so caps place him firmly in the supporting cast rather than the starting picture. In a young squad his is one of the steadier heads on the bench, the kind of selection that matters more for the balance of the group than for the minutes he is likely to see.

The face of Lamouchi's reset, Ayari is the left-sided forward and inverted winger picked over Sassi-era certainties on the promise of what he might become rather than what he has yet done, and projected to start the opener carrying a slice of the attacking burden. He has the pace to frighten a high line on the counter, which is exactly the profile this transition-first side needs, and he started against Belgium with real responsibility. At 21 he is the youngest outfield bet in the side, a prospect at Paris Saint-Germain whose senior minutes there have been limited, so the call-up itself is the statement, not any stat line, which the local sources could not pin down in detail. He is one of three players who keep Tunisia tied to Ligue 1, and the symbol of the whole renewal, a footballer asked to grow into a nation's attack at a tournament of this weight. Asking that of a 21-year-old in a group of this difficulty is a considerable gamble; that Lamouchi made it anyway is the clearest expression of what kind of squad he wanted to build, and this is a breakout stage in the fullest sense.

Tunisia's primary outlet on the break, Achouri is the right-sided forward whose directness and one-against-one dribbling are meant to be the team's release valve the moment the ball is won, the runner Hannibal looks for first. He hit the woodwork against Belgium in the moments before the game turned, a glimpse of the ceiling Lamouchi is banking on, and at 27 he is in his prime years, a diaspora forward who has made himself a fixture at Copenhagen, where Danish league and European football have given him a steady platform. With nearly thirty caps and a handful of international goals he is one of the more proven attacking options in a forward line otherwise short on tournament experience, and his is a first World Cup arriving at a sensible age, neither a wide-eyed teenager nor a fading veteran. Much of whether Tunisia's block has teeth depends on the first pass after a turnover finding him in space, which makes his form one of the load-bearing variables of the whole campaign.

A centre-forward built for the thankless work this system asks of its striker, Chaouat started up front against Austria and competes with Mastouri for the lone forward role, a hold-up player asked to pin centre-backs, chase lost causes and occupy defenders so the runners can break beyond him. At 30 he is in the experienced phase of his career, back home at Club Africain after time abroad, and his six international goals across nearly thirty caps make him a credible if unspectacular option for a team that does not create many chances. His World Cup is most likely as a rotation striker and an option from the bench, the alternative look up top when Lamouchi wants a different kind of presence, and at his age this is most likely his one and only tournament at this level.

The projected lone striker, Mastouri is the target man at the tip of the low block, asked to pin the centre-backs, hold the ball up for Hannibal to run off, attack the back post on crosses and resist the temptation to drop too deep when Tunisia are chasing. He started there against Belgium, and Lamouchi made a point at the pre-tournament camp of dispelling rumours about his fitness, confirming him available. At 28 he is in his peak years, a forward whose path has taken him to Dinamo Makhachkala in the Russian league, an unusual home that keeps him somewhat off the radar of the European press; his caps and goals mark him as a useful international finisher rather than a prolific one. His is a first World Cup at a settled age, and the role he plays is among the hardest in the side, the spearhead of an attack that will see little of the ball and must make the most of the scraps it gets.

A forward who can play through the middle or off either flank, Saad is one of the attacking alternatives jostling for a place in a front line where no berth is settled, an option to start or to change a game from the bench. At 26 he is in his prime, a diaspora pick shaped in Germany who plays his club football at Hannover, and his fifteen or so caps with a few goals among them mark him as a genuine contender rather than a passenger. In a squad that frets about where its goals will come from, his versatility and his German-schooled directness give Lamouchi a card worth holding, and a first World Cup is a real shop window for a player still building his international standing.

One of the diaspora additions that broadened this squad, Tounekti is a young wide forward who moved into a bigger arena at Celtic, where Scottish and European football have raised his profile. At 23 he is emerging, with a thin handful of caps and a single international goal, a developmental attacking option rather than a fixture in the front line. His World Cup is most likely spent competing for minutes from the bench, a pacey alternative wide who fits the transition brief, with his best tournaments still ahead of him should the trajectory hold.

The youngest player in the squad and one of the most striking statements of Lamouchi's reach into the future, Elloumi is an 18-year-old forward who plays his club football across the Atlantic at Vancouver, a diaspora teenager handed a place in a World Cup group on the strength of promise alone. His three caps tell you how new he is to all of this, and his selection is plainly about the years to come rather than the weeks immediately ahead; minutes, if they arrive at all, would be a bonus on top of the experience. For a player this young, simply being in the squad is the breakthrough, an early immersion at the summit of the game that points to where this generation of Tunisian football hopes to go.