Morocco sat long and hard staring at the pitch after their second group stage match at the Luzhniki Stadium had been completed.

Copious tears were shed as red jerseys were flung into crowd. The team’s supporters who had followed them around in their encounters against Iran and Portugal, were only too happy to accept it, mindful of their team’s superlative efforts in a losing cause against two constants of World Cup football.

Twenty-eight shots, a dominance of possession in both games and better statistics than their opponents on most counts but the ball wouldn’t roll in. Ultimately, it took one moment of decisiveness from the world’s most in-form striker to knock them out of Russia.

The underdog story of the World Cup is what those hyper-extended on their dose of football cynicism live for, a few days among the 1461 available every four year cycle. The tournament needs its sacrificial lambs to play their 270 minutes, and cry their eyes out, in search for footballing nirvana that appeared within reach, but wasn’t.

Try explaining that to Mehdi Benatia, the captain of the men from Maghreb who had two opportunities to render Rui Patricio defenseless, but zapped over the bar at the moments of reckoning.

Benatia, in a journeyman career that has taken him to Juventus, Roma and Bayern Munich among other clubs, will be 35 next summer. Morocco returned to the big stage after a gap of two decades, which meant that this group of players have been given a chance that the previous two generations were not privy to.

They went unbeaten through their final group of African qualifying, Tunisia and Senegal managing the same. But none of these other teams matched the Atlas Lions in not conceding a single goal, as they eliminated powerhouses like Ivory Coast.

But in Russia, a 95th-minute own goal and an unstoppable header in the 4th minute put paid to Morocco’s hopes. Portugal offered nothing of note apart from that goal, as Cristiano Ronaldo struggled, the goal aside.

Portugal made one change from their match against Spain, Joao Mario coming in for Bruno Fernandes. It was an offensive change from Fernando Santos, as it was aimed at shoring up the attack.

It worked almost immediately as the West Ham man stole the ball in Morocco’s half and sparked a move which ended in the corner leading up to Ronaldo’s goal. For the Portugal captain, it was his 85th goal at international level, a record beating one as he surpassed the ‘Galloping Major’ Ferenc Puskas as the highest European international goal-scorer of all time.

The Iberians, however, offered precious little in attack as it was all Morocco there-on, the North Africans displaying the pace and power associated with teams from the region. If Santos had made the change hoping that Herve Renard’s men would be defensive, he got it wrong as it was his team under the cosh for long stretches of the game.

Nordin Amrabat, on the left, playing without his protective helmet, was a terror for Raphael Guerreiro and the 31-year-old winger was double teamed at times as Portugal couldn’t handle him. Younes Belhanda, pulling the strings in the middle, played Portugal like a violin. They passed, they crossed, they shot, but it wouldn’t go in as Jamie Lannister look-alike Renard looked on from the sidelines.

The Euro champions have developed a reputation for being the ultimately 1-0 team, pulling off hard-fought results using any means possible. While there was universal agreement over the cruelty of the result, the absence of style reflected in the result, meant that Morocco would receive the plaudits but not the actual points.

They became the first team to exit Russia, as those in the Luzhniki were privileged enough to watch a plucky underdog upset the established order of world football, only to fall short.

This is the magic of the World Cup; to pick a free-flowing team, which didn’t win or progress but played enough ball to impress the spectator, who in turn relays the same to disbelieving listeners years later. Morocco 2018 will know that they earned their place in the World Cup’s ‘Almost’ hall of game. That will give them scant solace, knowing what could have been.