The story

Tunisia's most recent World Cup outing ended in a 5-1 victory, while Japan drew their last match, with both sides entering on roughly equal rest of around six days. In head-to-head World Cup meetings, there have been under 3.5 goals in four of the last five encounters, and both nations have gone without an early goal in each of their last seven World Cup matches respectively. Junya Ito holds the highest average rating for Japan in matches against Tunisia at 7.85, with Montassar Talbi the standout performer for Tunisia in the same fixture at 7.45.