Japan eliminates Tunisia with dominant 4-0 World Cup win
Tunisia's loss, in the tournament's 1,000th match, leaves them bottom of Group F with no points and eliminating them from the tournament
Ayase Ueda scored twice and added an assist as Japan beat Tunisia 4-0 in Group F on Saturday in Monterrey, Mexico, eliminating Tunisia and spoiling the debut of new coach Herve Renard. Daichi Kamada opened the scoring in the fourth minute, the fastest goal ever for Japan in a World Cup match. Ueda made it 2-0 in the 31st minute, Junya Ito scored in the 69th, and Ueda's header in the 83rd made it 4-0.
Japan is now the first Asian team to score four goals in a World Cup match.
The match was the 1,000th in World Cup history, with Asian Football Confederation teams now having featured in 151 of those matches. Tunisia will now finish bottom of Group F and cannot finish above Sweden. As a result, Tunisia became the third team eliminated from the tournament, after Haiti and Turkey.
This was Tunisia's seventh World Cup, and they have never advanced past the group stage. They have also never previously lost a World Cup match by four or more goals until doing so in back-to-back games this tournament, against Sweden and Japan.
Tunisia's coach, Sabri Lamouchi, was fired after a 5-1 loss to Sweden in the team's opener and was replaced by Herve Renard, who previously coached Saudi Arabia to a 2-1 upset of Argentina at the 2022 World Cup.
Japan's draw with the Netherlands in their opener ended a run of six consecutive wins but stretched their unbeaten run to eight games. Japan and the Netherlands each have four points and a plus-4 goal differential, with Sweden on three points heading into Thursday's final group matches, when Japan faces Sweden, and the Netherlands faces Tunisia.