Tunisia aiming to make their mark

Africa should register a badly-needed first win of the tournament when Tunisia line out against Saudi Arabia in Munich this afternoon. Of the five African finalists in Germany, Tunisia are the only ones with previous experience since this is their fourth finals appearance.

Under French coach Roger Lemerre, the man who led France to their Euro 2000 triumph, Tunisia have already picked up the African Nations trophy on home ground last year.

They will be without striker Tunisian-naturalised Brazilian Francileudo Santos today, a key figure in their qualifying run. Nineteen-year-old Yassine Chikhaoui may replace Santos.

But coach Lemerre has set his sights on a place in the knockout phase as the Tunisians aim to start their third consecutive finals campaign with a win.

"In Tunisia everybody expects that the team will go through to the second round because it is the third time in a row that the country has qualified for the World Cup and it is time to go on and get some good results," he said.

Saudi Arabia, in their fourth consecutive World Cup, will be keen to avoid a repetition of four years ago when they opened up with an 8-0 loss to Germany, prior to losing 1-0 to Cameroon and 3-0 to Ireland.

Saudi, too, have a Brazilian connection in coach Marcos Paqueta. Like Tunisia, they have injury worries, especially regarding their veteran captain, striker Sami Al-Jaber who twisted his ankle in training yesterday. The Group H encounter will mark the start of Sami Al Jaber's fourth World Cup campaign and the former Wolves striker is confident his team will not make the same mistakes as they did four years ago.

"The atmosphere in the team is very different to how it was in Japan," he said. "Then our preparations were not good, there were problems on the technical side and with the players but this group is better and we are determined not to make the same mistakes."

Probable line-ups

Tunisia (4-4-2)

Boumnijel; Trabelsi, Jaidi, Hagui, Jemmali; Namouchi, Mnari, Chedli, Bouazizi; Jaziri, Chikhaoui

Coach: Roger Lemerre

Saudi Arabia (4-5-1)

Al Deayea; Tuker, Sulaimani, Al Montashari, Dokhi; Al Khariri, Ameen, Noor, Al Shalhoub, Al Jaber; Al Qahtani

Coach: Marcos Paqueta