PENALTIES trump post mortems – it doesn’t matter what happened before.

Spain and Morocco were put on the 12m spot after 120 minutes of stalemate, and Spain imploded.

Not one of the Spanish penalties passed Yassine Bounou as Morocco triumphed 3-0.

Battered and bruised from all the dogged defending, Morocco deserved the win if only for their tenacity.

Spain held the high ground throughout the game, but the Moroccan collective held out against the Spanish stars.

Spain possessed, but Morocco dispossessed and repossessed.

That was the story of 90 minutes that had quite a few highlights but no real headlines as Morocco nullified Spain’s ball players through tight marking and disciplined defence.

As expected, the Spaniards had much of the ball, but they didn’t – couldn’t – do much with it. It’s easy to see why Morocco produce more clean sheets than a five-star laundromat.

Forget the glass ceiling; there was an invisible wall at the back that Spain simply could not penetrate.

As soon as Morocco lost possession, they charged back and there were 10 players behind the ball; and when they won it, there were five players on attack.

But it did get desperate for the Atlas Lions in the last 20 minutes of regular time as Spain huffed and puffed but couldn’t blow the Moroccan house down.

There were at times a few elements of luck but eventually Spain began abandoning their short passing game for long balls into the box where Morata always looked likely to get on the end of something.

Ultimately, Spain had only one shot on goal (apart from the penalties), while substitute Shaderi could have wrapped it up for Morocco twice in extra time, including one saved by Simone with his leg.

But once the game ended and it was time for the penalties, the rest was history.

Both keepers, Unai Simon and Yassine Bounou, looked relaxed enough ahead of the showdown.

Sabiri took the first one for Morocco. He looked nervous, but coolly struck it into the right corner (1-0).

Sarabia, who had been unlucky to clip the bar with the final kick of the game, saw his fine shot elude Bounou but smash back off the upright (1-0).

Hakim Ziyesh, who with Romain Saiss and Sofiane Boufal had terrific games for Morocco, smacked his spot kick straight as an arrow (2-0).

Carlos Soler responded with a limp effort, too easily saved by Bounou. It remained 2-0.

Benoun had come off the bench for the Lions and he gave Spain some hope when he telegraphed his intentions and Simone kept it out (2-0).