All the spectators at the Education City stadium were almost on their feet apart from those in the VIP and Press Box Wednesday night when Achraf Hakimi put the ball on the penalty spot to take Morocco's fourth shot in the tiebreaker, keeping in mind that a score from here would take the Atlas Lions to their first ever World Cup quarter-finals eliminating the mighty Spain.
After 120 minutes plus additional time of fascinating football, both the teams were inseparable, resulting in a penalty shootout where Abdelhamid Sabiri converted the first one to give first blood to Morocco.
Spain sent Pablo Sarabia who hit the post and Hakim Ziyech didn't make any mistake followed by a Carlos Soler penalty saved by Moroccan wall Yassine Bounou.
Badr Benoun though failed to score from his chance but a miss from one of Spain's 2010 World Cup winning player Sergio Busquets ensured Morocco's 2-0 lead was intact.
Then came the moment of truth.
Madrid-born Hakimi was standing in front of Spanish goalkeeper Unai Simon.
And the Paris Saint Germain star scored.
Hakimi's emotional celebration with his mother after their historical 2-0 win against Belgium in the second group match was already viral and got another chance to be recreated and this time it was even more beautiful and significant.
With the goal, Morocco not only wrote history for themselves but for Arab world too.
In their sixth attempt at the World Cup, they became the fourth African and first Arab side to make it through to the last eight.
Also Read: Changing of guard, all over for tiki-taka?
Likewise, the result at the field, Moroccan crowd also outnumbered that of Spain and the full-packed Education City stadium consisting of 44,667 fans actually resembled a red sea.
Thousands of fans entered the host city Doha late and many are planning to come to validate the scintillating performance by the Atlas Lions, which does not seem like a fluke at this moment.
Despite pitted in a group with two European giants and last World Cup's runners up and third placed side - Croatia and Belgium, Morocco emerged group winners, conceding only once, that too an own goal against Canada during their 2-1 win in the last group stage match.
In a World Cup where most of the giants had to face defeats in the group stage, Morocco's unbeaten run is more significant and giving hope to the Arab world.
And it came in the first ever World Cup hosted by an Arab nation, which was understandably criticized, followed by some one-off successes by their fellow nations when Saudi Arabia and Tunisia upset two-time World Cup winners - Argentina and France respectively.
After the eventful group round, things were getting normal as all the traditional European and South American giants were comfortably sailing through to the quarters which saw elimination of non-elites form other continents – US, Senegal, Australia, Japan and Korea Republic.
It was only Morocco who were left to play against the grain and they caused the only upset – obviously on pen and paper – to take their places among the giants in the last eight.
Now the African side have to face Portugal, who showed one of the best free-flowing attacking play to crush Switzerland 6-1 even with Cristiano Ronaldo benched.
But with the confidence and belief they have within themselves, Morocco will not fear anything and will put their bodies on the line to take the newly-written history further.
How far can they go?