Trabelsi named as Tunisia coach

Trabelsi is hoping reign will herald a new era in Tunisian football

Ex-Tunisia defender Sami Trabelsi has been named as the the country’s third national team coach in as many months.

The former international was handed the post after leading home-based players to success in last month’s African Nations Championship in Sudan.

Terms and conditions of the contract were not revealed.

Trabelsi replaces Ammar Souyah, who was appointed last month to replace Faouzi Benzarti, but departs without taking charge of a match.

The 43-year-old, who previously coached Tunisia’s Olympic team and played at the 1998 World Cup, is tasked with securing a berth at the 2012 African Nations Cup finals, co-hosted by Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

Tunisia are still in the running to grab one of the two automatic qualification spots from their group but have three crunch matches to come over the next few months.

Trabelsi will debut at the helm of the team when they meet Oman in a friendly in Muscat on 29 March.

Souyah had been brought back to the job in January but quit in the wake of the popular uprising in the north African country that led to the toppling of the government.

Benzarti later said he had been pressurised into taking the post by then-president Zine al-Abdine Ben Ali.