Blood, tears and prayer: The chaos and emotion of Morocco’s win over the Netherlands

A penalty slotted low to the goalkeeper’s left. A shirt ripped off and thrown up in celebration. A host of team-mates in white joyfully rushing towards the corner flag. A place in the round of 16 grasped with the last ounces of energy.

In the centre circle, players in orange lying on the floor, wondering when — or perhaps even if — their next opportunity will come. Another major tournament lost to fine margins and (at least) another four-year wait to make amends.

This was Morocco’s round-of-32 penalty shootout win against the Netherlands in Monterrey, Mexico. And these are the emotional extremes only the World Cup can produce.

When Ismael Saibari scored his spot kick to send Morocco’s fans into delirium, it was the culmination of more than 120 minutes of play, plus penalties in which their passionate fanbase turned the Estadio BBVA into scenes surely reminiscent of Rabat.

Every touch of the ball by a Netherlands player was greeted with a cascade of whistles. Ronald Koeman’s side largely weathered that storm to take the lead and it seemed as if that might be enough to take them through to the last 16 — before a late equaliser that changed everything.

It was a knockout tie that had it all. There was sheer brutality for much of it, with players from both sides exchanging meaty challenges; somehow, the first yellow card was only shown by referee Wilton Sampaio in the 47th minute. One of the defining images of the night was Jan Paul van Hecke briefly coming off bloodied and dazed after an inadvertent boot to the face from a Morocco player. It summed up how the Dutch felt at the end of this contest.

There was the rawness of Cody Gakpo scoring the opening goal after a week in which he and his partner announced the death of their baby son during pregnancy. Gakpo stayed on the ground at first, cradling his head as the entire squad mobbed him, before covering his face with his shirt and finally letting it all out.

In the stands, the emotion was etched across his parents’ faces.

There was the 91st-minute equalising header from Issa Diop — his first goal for his country in seven appearances after switching allegiances from France in March — leading to drinks raining down from the stands. “I don’t know what I was doing there,” the Fulham centre-back said afterwards.

As if the tension could not grip the stadium even more, there was a chaotic penalty shoot-out — with three spot kicks hitting the woodwork, one rolling in off Netherlands goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen, a huge left hand from Morocco’s Yassine Bounou and Saibari punishing the country where he plies his trade with Eindhoven.

At the end of it all, both coaches were left to pick over a game which would not have looked out of place in the quarter-finals or semi-finals. Such is the nature of a 48-team tournament with an extra knockout round; one of these high-quality sides was always going to be disappointed. Even Morocco’s players acknowledged that in the aftermath of victory.

“This game came far too early for my belief, because such a big game so early in the tournament is not fair for both of us,” Morocco’s Manchester United full-back Noussair Mazraoui said.

Pundits back home and elsewhere were quick to call out Koeman for his tactics. A side full of Premier League-proven players sat back with a five-man defence and often failed to lay a glove on their opponents.

“This is on Koeman because I didn’t recognise this Dutch team, and he lost with an identity that is not the Dutch identity, and that makes me angry,” said the former Sweden forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic on Fox’s coverage of the game. Thierry Henry expressed similar sentiments, saying the Netherlands had tried not to lose the game rather than win it. Morocco coach Mohamed Ouahbi admitted to being “taken aback” by the formation.

“If I had to do it again, I would do it the same way,” Koeman said in his post-match press conference. “When you are the Dutch head coach, when the equaliser is scored, I am going to be scolded by the fact I had five defenders. But I believe that to be necessary. I discussed it with the team, and they also felt that way.”

Reporters from the Netherlands did not hold back, asking the 63-year-old whether he had handed in his resignation as head coach.

“No, I haven’t,” he said. “I am going to reflect on my future. This is right after a game, and the disappointment is present in my mind. Maybe I’ll come to a conclusion by tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon. I haven’t reflected on it just now.”

This is the brutal reality of being eliminated in the World Cup knockouts. The Netherlands haven’t lost a match in 90 minutes at the tournament since 2006, but they have now been eliminated from their past three World Cups on penalties. They can add Monterrey in 2026 to Lusail in 2022 and Sao Paolo in 2014, the site of their two previous defeats on spot kicks, both to Argentina.

The flipside is the joy experienced by Morocco and their fans. Ouahbi and the players prayed together before the shootout. When they won, they knelt in front of their supporters at one end of the ground in a gesture of gratitude. “We know when we do everything on the pitch, it’s God that gives something back to us as well,” said Ouahbi afterwards.

As a frustrated Denzel Dumfries spoke to reporters in the mixed zone, he shot a glance across the room as Diop and Mazraoui shared in a moment of celebration.

The pain of what might have been.