Herve Renard warned, before taking the reins in his first match as Tunisia coach, against Japan on Saturday, that there were 'no magicians in football', and that if the Carthage Eagles were to get anything from the match, they had to get the basics right, rather than rely on supernatural intervention.
Ultimately, they failed both in nailing the basics and in conjuring a miracle, with their opening 5-1 defeat by Sweden followed up by Saturday's miserable 4-0 thumping by Japan in Monterrey.
Given the hype and the excitement that accompanied Renard's arrival, it was all very anticlimactic. Daichi Kamada put Japan ahead after four minutes, the Samurai Blue led 2-0 at the break, before Junya Ito's 69th-minute effort and a late second for Ayase Ueda eased them past a hapless Tunisia.
The landmark 1000th World Cup match saw Tunisia become the second team eliminated from this tournament - after Haiti - which is an especially poor outcome for such experienced campaigners at the competition, and given they haven't truly faced one of the world's truly top teams.
Indeed, all of the qualities that Renard called on his new charges to deliver in the days before the match came to naught. They were not well organised, they didn't appear to be competing with zeal and motivation, they appeared to be lacking belief, and the unity that the French coach had insisted on seeing from his team failed to materialise.
Indeed, his ambitions for the Carthage Eagles to bring a smile back to the supporters back home, or to restore pride in the national team, fell completely flat, as Tunisia were arguably worse against Japan than they had been in their dismal opener against Sweden.
At least against the European team they had fought back after conceding twice to pull a goal back through Omar Rekik just before half-time, threatening a second-half comeback that ultimately never arrived.
Yet they created chances, won many of their duels, and even edged Sweden for possession - albeit without imposing their game effectively on their opponents.
Against Japan, they looked ragged, thoroughly outclassed, outplayed, and - with their World Cup survival on the line - failed to force a single save from Zion Suzuki.
It was a weak and feeble exit, with Tunisia showing little of the grinta and grit that has at least guaranteed to make them competitive in previous tournaments.
Indeed, perhaps regardless of what happens in their final group game against Netherlands - and it looks likely to be ugly - this will have to go down as one of the all-time worst African World Cup campaigns.
After two games they have zero points, with a goal difference of minus eight, and become the first team since hapless Greece in 1994 to lose by four-goal margins in their opening group games.
Depending on what happens against Netherlands in their final group game, Tunisia could rival Zaire and their infamous campaign in 1974 for a tournament campaign remembered for its wretched results. The Leopards ultimately lost all three of their matches in West Germany, failed to score, and exited with a -14 goal difference.
El Salvador (1982), Saudi Arabia (2002), North Korea (2010) and Panama (2018) is the kind of historically ignominious territory that Tunisia are entering into.
However, unlike first-timers Zaire, or some of the minnows listed above, Tunisia's results are particularly poor because of the fact that they were ranked 44th in the world before the tournament, had qualified from Africa without conceding, have reached six of the last eight World Cup editions, and were expected to be competitive this tournament.
The results versus expectations take them into a different category from those sides listed above.
What also takes this Tunisian campaign to another level is the in-fighting, disharmony, and bitter tensions that exist between players, federation officials, and media.
They were a key factor behind the premature parting of ways with head coach Sabri Lamouchi after the opening defeat by Sweden, but his exit and Renard's arrival didn't get rid of the lingering animosity.
Indeed, Renard's calls for unity, for the team to 'live in the present', and 'turn the page' on the team's recent emotional strains that had enveloped the camp appear to have fallen on deaf ears.
This internal implosion is a hark back to previous distress African World Cup campaigns that collapsed upon themselves amidst disagreement between players and federation - Cameroon and Ghana in 2014, as well as Togo in 2006 come to mind.
Based on the tearful testimony of fullback Ali Abdi, speaking after the elimination by Japan, the Carthage Eagles need a complete reset if they're to start rebuilding their standing in the world game.
"I apologise to the Tunisian supporters, but not to those people who amuse themselves by leaking information left and right," the defender told journalists. "We don't have time to work. Instead of fixing the glass, we tear everything down and rebuild every time.
"We're coming to play a World Cup with players who have never played together."
His final comment may well be in relation to Lamouchi's decision to axe experienced duo Yassine Meriah and Ferjani Sassi (over 200 caps between them) and start Mouhib Chamakh, Omar Rekik and Rani Khedira against Sweden, with all of the three each having fewer than 10 caps.
Goalkeeper Chamakh and midfielder Khedira, who had made his competitive debut against Sweden, were both dropped by Renard for the Japan match, with the Frenchman switching from a 5-3-2 formation to a 3-4-2-1 approach that neither made the Carthage Eagles more solid nor more fluid in attack.
Again, individual errors - something that Renard insisted on cutting out - cost Tunisia, with Yann Valery outmanoeuvred by Keito Nakamura in the build-up to the opener, Rekik's hashed clearance leading to Japan's second, where Dahmen should have done better, Montassar Talbi too slow to close down Ueda; the offside trap was bungled for the third goal, and the fourth came from a miscommunication between Ellyes Skhiri and Anis Ben Slimane.
"We can't be satisfied with a score like that," summarised Renard. "In the first half, we were unable to get out with the ball. For the first twenty minutes of the second half, we did it well, and then we were too soft defensively and we conceded a goal."
Tunisia are eliminated, but with their final game against the Netherlands to come, Renard can still prevent them from being - statistically - Africa's worst ever World Cup team, while restoring some pride before they depart North Africa. If he can do that, it might rank among his most remarkable footballing miracles.