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 A feature of the Football World Cup is that it can lead to tense penalty shoot-outs during crucial matches.

When a similar situation arose in Tuesday's match between Morocco and Spain, Morocco needed their star man to score the all-important penalty against Spain to send Morocco into the World Cup quarter-finals for the first time. Make an Arab team.

After 120 minutes of nail-biting competition and two successful penalties, the onus was on Ashraf Hakimi to end the pressure-filled moment.Interestingly, Ashraf Hakimi was born in Spain and played as a right-back for Spanish club Real Madrid, and if things had been even slightly different, he might have been playing for Spain instead of Morocco on Tuesday.

However, 24-year-old Hakimi chose his home country and now the weight of responsibility of an entire nation rested on his young shoulders as his goals would have sent his team into the World Cup quarter-finals.

Hakimi took the penalty very calmly, as if it was no big deal. He chipped the ball into the center of the goal, a style of penalty called 'paninka', which sparked celebrations from Moroccan fans everywhere. After that, he celebrated the win in the shootout in a very emotional way.

Morocco is the fourth African team and the first Arab country to make it to the quarterfinals of the World Cup. Cameroon in 1990, Senegal in 2002 and Ghana in 2010 received this honor. No African team has been able to reach the semi-finals till date.

After the match, Moroccan manager Waleed Regarghi said, "This is a great achievement and all these players played together and showed great courage." We knew we had a lot of support and we tried to show that energy in our performance today.The success was so great that after the match, Regargi received a phone call from King Mohammed VI of Morocco."This is very unusual for a Moroccan," Regraghi added. The king always encourages us and advises us and expects us to do our best.'His message is always the same, that he is very proud of the players and as a result we want to work harder and try to play better next time."Morocco were the underdogs in this match and they knew it.They stuck to their game plan and persevered with a strong defense that saw Spain only have one shot on target even as Spanish coach Luis Enrique's side made more than 1,000 passes to force the opposition to their knees. tried to do.Spain are one of the few best teams, if not the best in the world, we couldn't play too aggressively against them because that's what they wanted from us," Regargi said."We were patient and we knew if it came down to penalties we would have a good chance because our goalkeeper is one of the best goalkeepers in the world." That is why we fought till the last moment."No one believed in us, but we believed in ourselves," an excited Moroccan Azam fan celebrating outside the stadium told BBC Support. I believe we can win again.