Wahbi Khazri: the makeshift striker with Tunisia's hopes on his shoulders
This article is part of the Guardian’s 2018 World Cup Experts’ Network, a cooperation between some of the best media organisations from the 32 countries who have qualified for Russia. theguardian.com is running previews from two countries each day in the run-up to the tournament kicking off on 14 June.
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In his last game for Sunderland, a 3-0 defeat by Barnsley, Wahbi Khazri was booed by his own team’s fans. He left on loan to Rennes, where supporters quickly took him to their hearts, and this summer travels to Russia as a player on whom his country depends heavily. If he fulfils the hopes invested in him he may yet give Sunderland fans cause to smile: the club to whom he is still tied could make a tidy profit from selling him if he has a successful World Cup.
In fairness to Sunderland fans, they did not chastise the forward because they thought he was a bad player. On the contrary, they wanted him to stay and booed him for expressing a desire to leave. But the reason Khazri wanted to leave was because he had hardly played the previous season under David Moyes in a Sunderland team that finished bottom of the Premier League.
“He didn’t trust me,” Khazri told L’Equipe earlier this year. “I wasn’t in his plans but the fact that we finished with 24 points tells you about him. He just did not like my style of play. I’m not saying that I would have changed the club on my own but I could have helped the team.”
Instead he helped Rennes. The Brittany team were second from bottom of Ligue 1 when he joined and had not won a match. In Khazri’s first appearance they triumphed 3-1 away to Marseille, Khazri topping an impressive performance with a backheeled goal. He continued that form all season to help Rennes achieve a remarkable fifth place finish. Remarkably, Khazri did that while playing out of position. Normally he operates on the wings but for Rennes he was asked to serve as a centre-forward. He did it so well that the club’s manager, Sabri Lamouchi, dubbed him ‘the Breton Cavani’.
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“We know that playing centre-forward is not something that can last in the long term, but he does it so well, getting free, looking for solutions by himself and standing out,” said Lamouchi. “He has intelligence and mischief. Every time he touches the ball, something happens.”
Of course Khazri is not Breton. He was, in fact, born in Corsica and spent the first years of his career there, first at JS Ajaccio and then at Bastia. He represented France Under-17s and then, over the next few years, switched between playing for France and Tunisia at various youth levels. Eventually, in 2012, he pledged his international future to Tunisia, “the choice of my heart” and one that particularly pleased his football-loving father.
Wahbi Khazri left Sunderland for Rennes on loan but could yet generate his parent club a windfall should he shine at the World Cup. Photograph: Richard Sellers/PA
In 36 senior appearances for the Carthage Eagles he has scored 12 goals, a good return for a player who has played primarily on the wings. He has also created many goals and not just from set-pieces, although his precise deliveries are a potent weapon.
Already key, Khazri’s import to Tunisia increased when the team’s brightest star, Youssef Msanki, suffered a knee ligament injury in April that has forced him to sit out the World Cup. That – along with the injury to centre-forward Taha Yassine – helped to convince Tunisia manager Nabil Maâloul to emulate Rennes and use Khazri as a striker during the pre-World Cup warm-ups. Khazri responded by making the only goal of the game against Iran and scoring the winner against Costa Rica.
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Against Costa Rica, however, he also revealed his down side: a short fuse. After rugged tackle from the Costa Rica defender Kendall Waston, Khazri lashed out and was fortunate to be shown only a yellow card. He was not so lucky in 2016, when he reacted to a bad tackle against Mauritania by punching the perpetrator, leading to a straight red.
“I think in a World Cup match he would have got a red card for kicking out at me like he did,” said Waston after the Costa Rica game. “In a friendly sometimes referees can leave it. People might look at that and think he could be wound up – and in football you have to take advantage of everything. When you know the type of player someone is, you try to do things that might make them crazy. England will see what happened and they will try to take advantage of it.”
If Khazri does not fall into traps, he could be a real nuisance to opponents at the World Cup, a treasure to Tunisia and the bringer of a small windfall to Sunderland.
Majed Achek writers for Tunisie-foot.