22 days to the World Cup: Tunisia makes it to the tournament without conceding a goal

The countdown to the 2026 World Cup is on! Each day ahead of the tournament’s return to North America, Yahoo Sports will highlight an insight or moment that showcases just how grand the world’s biggest sporting spectacle has become — even beyond the expanded field of this year’s global event.

By most measurements, Tunisia will enter the 2026 World Cup as an underdog. But the North African nation also joins the tournament off the back of a stellar qualifying run, cruising through 10 games without conceding a goal.

In a qualifying group with Liberia, Equatorial Guinea, São Tomé and Príncipe, Malawi and Namibia, Tunisia quickly established dominance. Tunisia won both games in the November 2023 window for qualifiers; in June 2024, the country beat Equatorial Guinea and drew against Namibia — their sole draw of qualifiers — to keep things going. 

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And in 2025, Tunisia went on a killer run, earning six straight wins, including three by three or more goals. In all, across the 10 games, Tunisia earned nine wins and a draw, scoring 22 goals without conceding a single one. Then, in September, the Carthage Eagles sealed qualification to the 2026 World Cup with a 94th-minute winner from Mohamed Ali Ben Romdhane against Equatorial Guinea.

That unbeaten run came from a group effort: 14 different players scored for Tunisia across the qualifiers. Ben Romdhane, who was surprisingly left off Tunisia’s World Cup squad, led the campaign with four goals. Only one other African country, Ivory Coast, ended with zero goals conceded in qualifying.

In six World Cup appearances, Tunisia has yet to make it past the group stage. In 2022, while in a highly competitive group with France, Denmark and Australia, Tunisia stayed tough. After pulling a draw from Denmark and a narrow loss to Australia, Tunisia beat France 1-0 in a bit of a stunner (though Les Bleus, the eventual runners-up, were already through to the knockout round at the time). That left Tunisia in third place, just behind the Australians and ahead of the Danes.

It’ll be another uphill battle for Tunisia this summer, with the nation in a group with the Netherlands, Japan and Sweden. But if Tunisia can continue to shut down opponents the way they did in qualifiers, they might have a chance to shake up Group F.