DOHA, Qatar
To the pounding of drums and a backdrop of screeching whistles, Spain exited this World Cup on an afternoon of absorbing drama at Doha’s Education City.
If it’s possible to control a game of football without ever having possession then Morocco showed us all how to do it here. For 120 minutes, they sat in their own half and invited Luis Enrique’s Spain to come and win this game.
Spain – shorn of the imagination and intricacies of old – could not do it. In fact they failed to get anywhere near. At the end of extra-time, the statistics showed the 2010 champions had enjoyed 77 per cent of the play but had only one shot on target to show for it.
And when it came to the penalty shoot-out that Morocco’s players had been seeking all along, the north Africans held their nerves while the Spanish lost theirs.
Luis Enrique had said before this game that he hoped his players had practiced ‘thousands of penalties’ before coming to Doha. When it came to it, they only got to take three and they missed them all.
With this stadium crammed full of Moroccans, the shoot-out was always going to be an even greater test of Spanish nerve than usual.
And when Pablo Sarabia, Carlos Soler and Sergio Busquets contributed three dismal penalties – the first against the post and the other two saved – it was left to Morocco to complete a totally unexpected journey in to the last eight.
Spanish goalkeeper Unai Simon did save one penalty – Morocco’s third from Badr Benoun – but Abdelhamid Sabiri and Chelsea’s Hakim Ziyech had by then scored their country’s first two and it was left to Achraf Hakimi to complete the victory with a gentle dink down the middle that summed up the control Morocca had on this game all afternoon.
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