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France 24
France 24
Sport
Tom WHEELDON

World Cup: Shock Tunisia win over France after Deschamps tries to rest stars

Tunisia's Wahbi Khazri celebrates his goal in their 1-0 win over France in their last group stage match at the Qatar World Cup on November 30, 2022. © Carl Recine, Reuters

A spirited Tunisia beat France 1-0 after Les Bleus manager Didier Deschamps decided to rest his top talent and field a largely second-choice side, since they had already booked their place in the knockouts. France played a lot of inept football until the likes of Kylian Mbappé and Antoine Griezmann came off the bench, giving Tunisia a well-deserved win – but Australia's win over Denmark means Tunisia go home. Read FRANCE 24's liveblog below to see how the match unfolded.

It looked like such a good idea to make nine changes try and rest France's top stars after they had already secured their spot in the knockouts with those great two wins over Australia and Denmark. But the team of mainly second choices played some shoddy football for most of the match against a sterling Tunisia – and Wahbi Khazri's goal was much-deserved.

Deschamps brought on Mbappé, Griezmann, Adrien Rabiot and Ousmane Dembelé – but it was not enough to overturn that Tunisia lead. It looked like Griezmann scored with a clinical finish in the last minute of injury time – yet it went to VAR after the final whistle and was ruled offside.

Despite that tremendous display from Tunisia, Australia's victory over Denmark gave them the edge on points to get that second-place spot in Group D and go to the last 16.

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