Morocco defeated the Netherlands in a penalty shoot-out to advance to the last 16 of the World Cup after a thrilling battle in Monterrey finished 1-1 after extra-time.<\/p>\n
Morocco goalkeeper Yassine Bounou made the crucial save to block the Netherlands’ fifth penalty from Crysencio Summerville before striker Ismael Saibari stepped up to blast home the winning spot-kick that sealed a 3-2 shootout win.<\/p>\n
The victory sends Morocco into a last 16 clash with Canada in Houston on Saturday.<\/p>\n
An enthralling match had gone to extra time after Issa Diop had glanced in a dramatic equaliser for Morocco in the first minute of stoppage time as the Netherlands closed in on victory.<\/p>\n
The Dutch had taken the lead midway through the second half with a goal from Cody Gakpo, playing just days after his partner had confirmed the death of the couple’s unborn son.<\/p>\n
Liverpool forward Gakpo sank to the turf and appeared overcome with emotion as he was surrounded by team-mates in a prolonged group embrace.<\/p>\n
But Morocco forced extra time when an unmarked Diop headed home from substitute Chemsdine Talbi’s cross in injury time.<\/p>\n
Morocco had created the better chances of a fractious encounter, which saw players from both sides flying into tackles to test the patience of Brazilian referee Wilton Sampaio.<\/p>\n
The Atlas Lions almost took the lead on 20 minutes when Neil al-Aynaoui glanced an Achraf Hakimi corner goalwards only to be denied by a superb reflex save from Netherlands goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen.<\/p>\n
Verbruggen was pressed into action moments later, this time doing well to tip a vicious strike from Hakimi over the bar.<\/p>\n
The fierce nature of the contest was on full display midway through the half when Saibari was lucky to escape sanction after elbowing Jan Paul van Hecke in the face.<\/p>\n
The Dutch continued to enjoy plenty of possession but were unable to convert it into goalscoring chances.<\/p>\n
Their best effort came on 44 minutes when Tottenham’s Micky van de Ven uncorked a ferocious shot from the edge of the area that was tipped over by Bounou.<\/p>\n
Van Hecke continued to find himself in the thick of the action, and after bloodying his head in a collision in the penalty area, made his presence felt with a crunching tackle that upended el-Aynaoui just before half-time.<\/p>\n
As the half ended Saibari just failed to connect with a cross that flashed across the Dutch goal before going behind.<\/p>\n
The drama continued into an end-to-end second half, but appeared to have tilted in the Netherlands’ favour when coach Ronald Koeman brought on forward Wout Weghorst in a flurry of substitutions after the hydration break.<\/p>\n
Weghorst made an immediate impact flicking on a long ball to send Summerville bearing in on goal. Summerville crossed to Gakpo, who hurled himself at the ball to score.<\/p>\n
The Netherlands, superbly marshalled by Gakpo’s Liverpool team-mate Virgil van Dijk, appeared to be heading for victory but Diop’s late header sent it to extra-time.<\/p>\n
Morocco looked to have made the breakthrough when Soufiane Rahimi went through on goal in the 96th minute, only to be denied by a jaw-dropping save from Verbruggen.<\/p>\n
The Netherlands held on for penalties but despite Morocco missing their first when El-Aynaoui hit the bar, the north Africans recovered to win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Morocco defeated the Netherlands in a penalty shoot-out to advance to the last 16 of the World Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-502448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}