Ismael Saibari thumped the decisive penalty past Bart Verbruggen deep in the Monterrey night, and Morocco’s players wheeled away in celebration having eliminated the Netherlands 3-2 on spot-kicks after a 1-1 draw. The shootout had already delivered the bizarre sight of Verbruggen saving Soufiane Rahimi’s effort only for the ball to spin back and trickle over the line off his right heel, and it ended when Bounou flung himself to his right to repel Crysencio Summerville’s attempt. Morocco, semi-finalists in Qatar four years ago, are through to the round of 16.

The contest had seemed to be slipping away from the north Africans when Cody Gakpo, playing days after he and his partner announced the loss of their unborn child, fired the Dutch ahead in the 72nd minute. Gakpo sank to the turf in tears as team-mates enveloped him, but Morocco refused to fold. In the first minute of added time, defender Issa Diop rose unmarked to glance Chemsdine Talbi’s cross past Verbruggen and force extra time. Rahimi then squandered a golden chance to win it in the 96th minute, denied by a stunning point-blank save from the Brighton goalkeeper, before the match lurched into penalties.

Morocco’s head coach Mohamed Ouahbi, who took over the senior side only months before the tournament, described his team’s performance as one of complete control. “We had 70 per cent possession, more shots and more expected goals,” he said, adding that the Netherlands’ decision to deploy a five-man defensive block was “a form of respect”. European analysts noted that Ronald Koeman’s side, the historic home of attacking football, had ceded the ball and territory to an African opponent in a manner almost unthinkable a decade ago. The Dutch exit, their earliest in a World Cup, also extended a miserable penalty record: they have now lost four shootouts at the finals, a joint record with Spain.

Viewed from Rabat and Casablanca, the victory confirmed a structural shift. Morocco, ranked seventh in the world, have become the first African nation to reach consecutive World Cup knockout stages since Ghana in 2010, and the swagger of their display suggested the 2022 semi-final was no isolated feat. Ouahbi insisted his players are driven by “something far bigger than football”, a reference to the millions who stayed awake past 2 a.m. local time to watch. “Nobody can stop us if we play the football we know how to play,” he said, though he cautioned that co-hosts Canada, their next opponents, would pose a severe test.

Morocco will meet Canada in Houston on 4 July, a rematch of their group-stage encounter in Qatar that the Atlas Lions won 2-1. The winner will face either France or Sweden in the quarter-finals, but for now the focus in the Moroccan camp is on avoiding complacency against a Canadian side that has already eliminated South Africa. “If we get things wrong, we’ll go home,” Ouahbi said. The statement was matter-of-fact, but the evidence from Monterrey suggests his team is learning to treat such outcomes as avoidable rather than inevitable.