This is the first encounter between Denmark and Tunisia at the Fifa World Cup. Their only previous meeting was a friendly 20 years ago in Japan, prior to the 2002 tournament which Denmark won 2-1....CONTINUE READING
At the FIFA World Cup, Tunisia has never beaten an opponent from Europe, whereas Denmark is undefeated against opponents from Africa (W2 D2) (D3 L7).
Denmark will be participating in its sixth FIFA World Cup. They have only ever qualified for back-to-back tournaments once, in 1998 and 2002.
In four of their previous five FIFA World Cup appearances, Denmark have advanced past the group stage, but never past the quarterfinals (1998, lost 3-2 to Brazil).
At the FIFA World Cup, none of Denmark’s 30 goals have come from outside the penalty area. No squad in the competition has scored as frequently without ever making a long-range goal.
In their ten games during World Cup qualifying, Denmark only lost to Scotland. In the group stage of the European qualifying, they had the most clean sheets of any team (8).
Tunisia will be participating in their sixth FIFA World Cup; they have never advanced past the group stage. In 1978, Tunisia defeated Mexico 3-1 to become the first country from Africa to win a game at the FIFA World Cup.
Going into Qatar 2022, Tunisia have lost 60 per cent of their FIFA World Cup games (9/15), the third highest per centage by a team to have played at least 15 games in the competition, behind only Saudi Arabia (69 per cent – 11/16) and Australia (63 per cent – 10/16).
Tunisia have failed to keep a clean sheet in 14 of their 15 games at the FIFA World Cup (25 goals conceded), the only exception coming against West Germany in 1978 (0-0).
No player scored more goals for Denmark in qualifying for the FIFA 2022 World Cup than Joakim Maehle (5, level with Andreas Skov Olsen), while no player was directly involved in more goals for the nation during their last major tournament than Maehle (3 – 2 goals, 1 assist at EURO 2020).
This will be Kasper Hjulmand’s second consecutive major tournament as Denmark manager. He led the Danes to the semifinals at Uefa Euro 2020, their best performance at a major tournament since winning EURO 1992.
Wahbi Khazri has been directly involved in each of Tunisia’s last four goals at the FIFA World Cup (2 goals, 2 assists).
