By James Copnall BBC Sport, north Africa

Coelho did not cover himself in glory with Morocco

After leading his native Portugal to the semi-finals of Euro 2000, Coelho became coach of Morocco.

His experience there was not a successful one.

Coelho was fired after the Atlas Lions lost out to Senegal in the race to qualify for the 2002 World Cup, and crashed out of the 2002 Africa Cup of Nations at the group stage.

"His time here was a huge disappointment for the Moroccan people," says sports journalist Adile El Alaoui.

"He didn't speak French very well, so instead of players who play in France he preferred those from Spain and Portugal."

Following one fiery incident - apparently over food at the team hotel - Coelho sent home the defender Abdeslam Ouaddou.

Coelho will have quite a task on his hands, and local reaction to his appointment has been mixed James Copnall

Many Moroccan journalists concluded the incident was symbolic of his poor relationship with the players.

The coach Samir Ajam, who has been part of the national team set-up in the past, is equally firm in his conclusions.

"It wasn't a particularly brilliant spell here, because he couldn't raise the standard," Ajam told BBC Sport.

"He was coming from Europe, with a different mentality, and so he found it very difficult to adapt.

"He had problems with the football federation, and with dealing with the group of players, in part because football is not professional here."

But Tunisia's football is perhaps the best-run in Africa, and certainly the closet in mentality to the European game.

Tunisia reached the quarter-finals of this year's Nations Cup

The national squad has many exciting young talents, most of whom, like Etoile du Sahel's Amine Chermiti, are products of the domestic league.

However the Carthage Eagles opened their 2010 World Cup qualifying campaign with an embarrassing defeat, a 2-1 loss at home to Burkina Faso that the Tunisian Football Federation (FTF) called "surprising".

That result suggests Coelho will have quite a task on his hands, and local reaction to his appointment has been mixed.

One online Tunisian football blog said the real problem was not the coach: "Appointing a new coach doesn't get to the root of the issue: the FTF is a disgrace and needs to purged."

Others were happy the FTF had moved away from the "French School" of coaches, by appointing a Portuguese.

But if Coelho is to take Tunisia's promising set-up and team to the expected results - a World Cup qualification and a strong showing at the 2010 Nations Cup in Angola 2010 - it is to be hoped he has learnt lessons from his disappointing stay in Morocco.