Tunisia imposed a valuable negative draw on its Danish counterpart, on Tuesday, at the start of its campaign in the Qatar Football World Cup at the Education City Stadium in Doha, in the first round of Group D competitions.
And meet later in the same group, France, the defending champion and Australia. The Tunisian national team hopes to qualify for the first time in its history to the elimination rounds.
The Tunisian tie came hours following the Saudi national team achieved a resounding surprise by defeating Argentina 2-1 in Group C, to complete the positive Arab results on the third day of the World Cup.
Tunisia, in the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, was the first African and Arab country to win a match in the World Cup finals, by defeating Mexico 3-1 in Rosario, before achieving its second victory in the 2018 World Cup in Russia at the expense of Panama 2-1.
The Tunisian and Danish teams met once during a friendly match in preparation for the World Cup in South Korea and Japan, where Denmark prevailed 2-1 in May 2002.
Denmark is participating for the sixth time in the finals, but it is only the second time that it has reserved its seat to the World Cup twice in a row (2018 and 2022) following the 1998 and 2002 World Cups.
Casper Helmand, coach of the “De Rod Hvid” national team, pushed his best elements, including Christian Eriksen, who returned to the stadiums following a heart attack that almost claimed his life, and goalkeeper Casper Schmeichel (Nice), while Jalal Al-Qadri, coach of the “Carthage Eagles”, kept the team’s attacking star, Wahbi Khazri, on the bench. He was married to the French league duo, Montaser Talbi (Lorient) and Ali Al-Abedi (Caen).
Driven by a wide crowd, Tunisia seemed to be playing at home. It was the first to threaten Denmark with a shot from outside the area from Mohamed Drager, which collided with Barcelona player Andreas Christensen and turned its way along the post, almost deceiving Schmeichel (11).
Denmark responded with a shy shot from Andersen (22), while Tunisia thought it had opened the scoring following a pass from Italian Salernitana defender Dylan Brune, followed by Issam El Jebali, so that the latter penetrated the area and hit the net, but he was offside (23).
And in a wonderful group game from the middle of the field, the ball reached Dräger inside the area, and Pierre-Emile Hoyberg had it on the lookout (33).
Issa Al-Aidouni hit a powerful ball following a dribble in the area on the crossbar (39), before Schmeichel clung to and saved the Danish Odense striker Al-Jabali by pushing the ball away with his hand (43).
Before the referee blew the whistle at the end of the first half, Denmark suffered a moral blow, with the injury of midfielder Thomas Delaney, to replace him with Mickel Damsgaard in an emergency substitution (45 + 1).
The “Carthage Eagles” started the second half pressing, and Issa Al-Aidouni wasted an opportunity, as he preferred to pass rather than shoot following he penetrated to the outskirts of the area, which was removed by the Danish defense (51), before Robert Skov scored following 4 minutes a goal that was canceled by the referee for offside Damsgard at the start of the game. .
Coach Helmand made 3 changes at once in the 65th minute, while his Tunisian counterpart, two minutes later, pushed Saudi Al-Ittifaq striker Naim Al-Sleiti instead of Ben Suleiman.
Denmark got two dangerous chances within two minutes (69 and 70), the first was removed by goalkeeper Ayman Dahman following a shot from Christian Eriksen, and the second was secured by the left post following Andreas Cornelius’ header.
Al-Qadri entered Birmingham’s English player Hannibal Al-Majbri and Taha Yassin Al-Khunaisi (Kuwait City) to give more vitality to the team instead of Msakni and Al-Jabali (80), without changing the result.
Denmark maintained its habits of not losing once morest the teams of the continent (two wins and 3 draws), on the other hand, Tunisia’s record remained devoid of victory once morest European teams (4 draws once morest 7 defeats).
