Ueda inspires Japan to eliminate Tunisia in landmark 1,000th World Cup match

Perhaps the manager wasn’t the problem after all. Tunisia sacked Sabri Lamouchi after last week’s 5-1 defeat to Sweden, appointing Hervé Renard as their seventh manager since qualifying began. But it turned out a diffident side lacking defensive conviction is a diffident side lacking defensive conviction whoever has to do the press conferences. Tunisia were well beaten by a Japan side inspired by the centre-forward Ayase Ueda, who scored twice and led the line with intelligence and imagination. Renard had just three days with his players since replacing Lamouchi. He performed heroics to win the Africa Cup of Nations with Zambia in 2012 and three years later became the first manager to win two Cups of Nations with different teams as he ended Côte d’Ivoire’s 23-year trophy drought. Attempts to break into the mainstream of French football with Sochaux, Lille and the France women’s team have faltered and the 57-year-old seems to have accepted that his role now is with aspirant nations in Africa and the Middle East rather than at the apex of the European game. Renard still wears his trademark white shirt but whatever luck it may once have brought seems to have worn off. Not that this mess could, in any realistic sense, be blamed on Renard. He’s just the well-remunerated sap paid to try to explain how Tunisia are out of the World Cup already. This was a landmark game for the World Cup, the 1,000th in its history. …