Former two-time Wigan Athletic man makes his mark at the World Cup

The 24-year-old utility man spent the second half of the 2022/23 season, and then the first half of 2023/24, on loan at Wigan from Premier League giants Arsenal.

He made 25 appearances in total for Latics before returning to North London.

Ironically, Rekik now plays in Slovenia for NK Maribor, who were grouped with Latics in their historic Europa League campaign in 2013/14.

Rekik’s big moment at the World Cup came just before half-time of the Group F fixture against Sweden in Philadelphia.

Brighton's Yasin Ayari and Liverpool striker Alexander Isak put Sweden 2-0 up, but their advantage was halved just before the break when Rekik headed in a cross from Hannibal Mejbri.

However, any hopes of a comeback were dashed when Isak seized on a defensive mishap to provide Arsenal's Viktor Gyokeres with the third.

Tunisia cruised through qualifying without conceding a goal, but Sweden were having a field day as Mattias Svanberg added a fourth goal seconds after arriving as a substitute with VAR overturning an original offside decision after ruling a slight flick by Isak played him onside.

And Ayari - who has a Tunisian mother, but opted for the country of his birth - fired in his second and Sweden’s fifth goal in the closing seconds.

“It’s a difficult loss,” said Tunisia boss Sabri Lamouchi. “It’s painful. Starting the competition with ⁠this bad of a loss is indeed difficult.

“With world-class players that we have in the two Swedish forwards, it’s something that you don’t recover from.

“We made way too many mistakes. We have our pride. We need to react. We need to give a better image.”

Swedish failed to win a game during a dire qualification campaign for the World Cup.

After bringing in Graham Potter towards the end of the campaign, Sweden then booked their place at the finals via the Nations League play-off, where they got the better of Ukraine and Poland.

The other two teams in Group F are Japan and Holland.