Libya’s Mediterranean Knights lock horns with Carthage Eagles of Tunisia for their first home game of the 2018 World cup qualifiers on Friday night.

The match will be staged at Omar Hamadi Stadium in Algiers,Algeria due to safety reasons as the home team look to bounce back after heavy opening defeat in Group A.Libya suffered a 4-0 defeat away to DR Congo.

Both teams have met sixteen times with Libya having managed to beat their rivals only five times.

Libya have never appeared in World Cup and are currently ranked 76 in the world. The Knights will be coming to this game sitting at the bottom of the Group A.

Carthage Eagles started their bid for a fifth FIFA World Cup appearance with a 2-0 triumph over Guinea October 9. Their last participation in the World cup was in 2006 in an event that took place in Germany.

The North African side is currently ranked 38th in the world. They are second in the Group A and have the same point, but a fall behind on goal difference with leaders DR Congo.

Tunisia slightly lead the recent head-to-head record against Libya with 3 wins against 2 defeats from their last 5 meetings. The latest of which was on October 2015, which Tunisia edged by a 1-0 margin. The previous meeting on June same year was won by Libya by the same margin.

Libya will be missing a key player ,Al-Sadiq Al-Fitouri who plays for Manchester United,who said he won’t be joining the team because he wants to stay focused on playing with his club.

This leaves the Libyan coach Jalal Al-Damja with 24 players, 6 of whom play for Arab and European team.

Tunisia on their side will be having a full house with most of their players coming from the local league.Aymen Abdennour and Anis Ben-Hatira will be at disposal of coach Henryk Kasperczak as this is a must win as they chase a fifth appeaeance at the World Cup finals.

The other Group A match will be on Sunday where Guinea will host DR Congo at September 28 Stadium in Conkary.