As if the 2026 World Cup hasn’t already delivered enough shocks, Day 5 of the tournament brought the first managerial sacking after just a single game played.
Tunisia boss Sabri Lamouchi was dismissed after his side suffered a woeful 5-1 defeat to Sweden in the Group F opener and Herve Renard has stepped in to fill the void.
It means Lamouchi, who was appointed in January, spent just five games in charge of Tunisia (of which he lost three times).
While that may seem eye-opening, a head coach being dismissed during a World Cup is not a totally novel occurrence — at the 1998 World Cup, it happened three times!
Still, Lamouchi is joining a very exclusive (if unwanted) club.
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Julen Lopetegui (Spain), 2018
Spain’s preparations for the 2018 World Cup famously hit a buffer less than 48 hours before their opening group game against Portugal when head coach Lopetegui was suddenly dismissed by the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF).
The RFEF was not overly thrilled to find that Lopetegui had also simultaneously been negotiating a deal to become Real Madrid‘s new manager without informing them. It duly terminated his contract with the national team as a direct result, leading to Fernando Hierro taking over at the 11th hour.
Under Hierro, Spain finished top of their group by the finest of margins but came unstuck against hosts Russia in the round of 16, ultimately suffering a premature exit after losing on penalties in Moscow.
Raymond Domenech (France), 2010
Already fairly unpopular before the tournament, things well and truly imploded for France and Raymond Domenech at the 2010 World Cup amid a bewildering series of infighting, expulsions and sit-in protests.
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A vicious argument with Nicolas Anelka at half-time in Les Bleus‘ 2-0 group-stage defeat against Mexico saw the striker leave the camp, with the remaining players then effectively staging a mutiny against their beleaguered coach.
Domenech remained in situ for the final group game (a dismal 2-1 defeat against South Africa) but had very little input from the dugout as his side went crashing out in utter disarray.
Carlos Alberto Parreira (Saudi Arabia), 1998
Saudi Arabia were the first nation to be mathematically knocked out of the 1998 World Cup, so perhaps it is no surprise that ended up costing their coach his job in the process.
Parreira was in charge of his native Brazil when they won the World Cup in 1994, but the magic did not rub off on his new side, who were bundled out of the competition having played just two games — a 1-0 defeat against Denmark and a 4-0 loss against France.
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The Saudis did rally to draw their final group game (2-2 versus South Africa) but it was very much a case of too little, too late.
Henryk Kasperczak (Tunisia), 1998
Kasperczak was a relatively popular figure in Tunisian football heading into the tournament after guiding the national side to second place at the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations.
However, despite coming into the World Cup with relatively high hopes, things quickly fell apart for Tunisia, who lost their opening two group-stage games against England and Colombia and promptly sacked Kasperczak before going onto claim a point in their final group tie: a 1-1 draw with Romania.
At least they didn’t go home entirely empty handed.
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Cha Bum-Kun (South Korea), 1998
He may be a titan of South Korean soccer but Bum-Kun’s legendary status was not enough to prevent his side from falling to hefty defeats in both of their opening two group games at France 1998.
Indeed, a 5-0 humiliation dealt by Netherlands saw the Korean FA pressed into action, sacking Bum-Kun and replacing him with assistant Kim Pyung-seok, who did at least manage to salvage a draw against Belgium in Korea’s final game, despite them already being out of the tournament.
Andy Beattie (Scotland), 1954
Beattie retains the somewhat incongruous distinction of being the only manager to have ever resigned during a World Cup to date, after making it just one game into Scotland’s run at the 1954 finals in Switzerland.
The former Scotland international had been selected as his country’s first ever full-time manager in 1954, but spent the first months of his tenure quarreling with the FA over the number of players he had been allowed to select for his World Cup squad (a whopping 13).
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A 1-0 loss to Austria in his opening game saw Beattie quit just days into Scotland’s first-ever World Cup campaign, with an FA selection committee taking the reins for the remainder of the tournament, which consisted of a 7-0 drubbing by Uruguay that saw the Scots comprehensively knocked out.
Honorable mention
Jean-Louis Gasset (Ivory Coast), 2023
It would be remiss to talk about managers getting sacked mid-way through major tournaments without mentioning the tale of Jean-Louis Gasset, who began the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations as the head coach of host nation Ivory Coast.
Ivory Coast actually won their opening group game against Guinea-Bissau, but then slumped to successive defeats to Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea, which meant they only just scraped through to the knockout phase as one of the best third-place sides.
Such was the pressure on his position, Gasset handed in his resignation only for his assistant, Emerse Fae, to step into the breach as a caretaker coach. What happened thereafter was nothing short of a footballing miracle as the Ivory Coast rallied and went onto win the AFCON outright, as they beat group-stage foes Nigeria to lift the most unlikely of trophies.
