Morocco fans celebrate as the team advances to Round 16 of the World Cup

Morocco fans celebrated outside the stadium in Monterrey on Monday after their team sent the Netherlands to its earliest ever World Cup exit.

The game went down to a penalty shootout after a 1-1 draw, with Morocco’s Ismael Saibari scoring the decisive goal to eliminate the Dutch 3-2.

Morocco will now move on to face Canada in the Round of 16 on Saturday in Houston.

“Holland scored, but they (Moroccan players) showed their heart, and they came back and scored," said Morocco fan Ahmed Yanouri after the match.

"And they played the extra time, they did great. And penalties too, even if we were losing, but we are a team that comes back. I believe that we have shown against Haiti, now against Holland. So we're hoping that when we go to Houston, Canada is a good team too, but I think we can prevail because we have already played great teams.”

The Netherlands had reached at least the Round of 16 in 11 previous World Cups. But disappointed were gracious in their loss. 



“I don’t know if they (lacked) spirit, form, shape, I don’t know, they were just not in the best performance and I think Morocco was better and they deserved it," said Niels Veldhoven, a Netherlands fan. "We were very lucky that the keeper saved us like three times. But I think Morocco was the deserved winner after all.”

The two teams entered with the highest combined ranking of any Round of 32 match. Morocco was sixth in the world and the Netherlands was seventh.