From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Karim Haggui (Arabic: كريم حقي) (born January 20, 1984) is a Tunisian football defender.

He was born in Kasserine and started his career in 1998 at local club AS Kasserine before moving to Etoile du Sahel two years later. He started his professional career at the latter club in 2003 and spent one more season with them before moving to French club Racing Strasbourg. He spent two seasons with Strasbourg, appearing in a total of 43 Ligue 1 matches and scoring two goals for the club in the league before leaving it for German Bundesliga side Bayer Leverkusen in the summer of 2006 following their relegation to Ligue 2. He made his debut for Bayer Leverkusen on July 29, 2006 in their German League Cup match against FC Schalke 04, where the Leverkusen team lost 9-8 on penalty shootout. His Bundesliga debut came on August 12, 2006 in the club's first match of the 2006-07 season, a 3-0 home victory over Alemannia Aachen.

Haggui has been a regular member of the Tunisian national team since 2003, winning up to this time a total of 29 international caps and scoring four goals for the team. He made his debut for the Tunisian national team on August 20, 2003 in their friendly match against Guinea and was subsequently part of the Tunisian squad at the 2004 African Cup of Nations, where the team won the title after beating Morocco 2-1 in the final match. Haggui, who was the youngest member of the Tunisian squad at the tournament, appeared in all six matches and scored the deciding penalty in the Tunisian team's 5-3 win over Nigeria on penalty shootout in the semifinals.

He was subsequently part of the Tunisian team at the 2004 Summer Olympics and appeared in all of their three group matches before they were eliminated from the tournament by finishing third in their group, behind the group winners and eventual gold medalists Argentina and the group runners-up Australia. Haggui also appeared in all of the Tunisian team's four matches at the 2006 African Cup of Nations and was also on target once, scoring the equaliser in the quarterfinals against Nigeria, where Tunisia was eliminated from the tournament after losing 6-5 on penalty shootout. He also played in all of the Tunisian team's three group matches at the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany, where the team was eliminated from the tournament in the first round as the group third-placed. Prior to the 2006 World Cup finals, he also appeared in seven qualifying matches for the tournament and scored a brace against Botswana in the first match of the qualifying.

	Tunisia squad - 2006 FIFA World Cup
1 Boumnijel | 2 Essediri | 3 Haggui | 4 Yahia | 5 Jaziri | 6 Trabelsi | 7 Guemamdia | 8 Nafti | 9 Chikhaoui | 10 Ghodhbane | 11 Santos | 12 Mnari | 13 Bouazizi | 14 Chedli | 15 Jaïdi | 16 Nefzi | 17 Ben Saada | 18 Jemmali | 19 Ayari | 20 Namouchi | 21 Saidi | 22 Kasraoui | 23 Melliti | Coach: Lemerre