Mitchell Duke scored the only goal of the game to help Australia produce one of the narrow World Cup scores of the weekend action. Graham Arnold’s troops came out fighting and forced Tunisia to play the majority of the opening exchanges inside their own half. When Craig Goodwin’s left-wing cross took a deflection and found Duke, Australia’s siege finally paid off in the 23rd minute. Duke readjusted brilliantly to steer a glancing header past the helpless Aymen Dahmen and inside the far post. While Australia now sits second in Group D with three points ahead of France’s match against Denmark on Saturday afternoon, Tunisia remains at the bottom of the standings with just one point and zero goals despite making improvements after the break.
Despite playing well against Denmark on Tuesday to a score of 0-0, Tunisia found it difficult to contain Australia in the opening period, with the African team frequently being exposed down their right flank. Australia eventually capitalized on the situation when Duke played a clever lay-off to Riley McGree before advancing into the area and connecting with Goodwin’s left-wing cross. Lately, Tunisia started to put some pressure on Australia, and they should have tied the score when Issam Jebali’s clever hold-up play helped to set up Mohamed Drager for a close-range shot, but Harry Souttar’s spectacular sliding challenge stopped him.
Youssef Msakni was then given a wonderful opportunity in the middle of the Australia area thanks to some excellent work from Jebali, but he could only bend his first-time attempt wide. In the second half, Tunisia abandoned their three-man defense in an effort to tie the score, but Australia should have won the match thanks to Matthew Leckie’s just-not-enough-stretch to turn in Jamie Maclaren’s left-wing cross. Despite their tactical change, Tunisia struggled to find any clear openings after the break, with Wahbi Khazri’s stabbing attempt, which Mathew Ryan easily saved, being their finest opportunity as the game approached stoppage time.
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