Cristiano Ronaldo arrived in Qatar as one of the most famous men on the planet, one of the best players to play football in any era. But he also arrived as an awkward tourist, having burned his bridges and been dumped by Manchester United. He found his place in Portugal’s starting line-up, a position that he had gripped for nearly two decades, under scrutiny and then ripped away by the time Portugal reached the Round of 16.

Against Switzerland, Ronaldo watched as his young replacement, Gonçalo Ramos, announced himself with a stunning hat-trick, producing the credentials that immediately installed the Benfica forward as an heir apparent.

But against Morocco, with an iron-willed defence that has still only been breached once in this World Cup, Ramos and the Portuguese wilted as the wall of whistles reached fever pitch and stayed there. Ronaldo entered the stage with 40 minutes left to go, a platform to produce one more heroic act, a final cinematic moment in a career filled with cinematic moments.

At the point of an attack that featured a line of four forwards in ever more desperate attempts to break Moroccan resistance, Ronaldo could not bend the World Cup to his will. He ran, he chased balls in behind, he leaped to try and get his head to balls, he tried to find shooting angles, everything and anything to break the red-shirted line of Moroccan barrier.

So did his teammates. But nothing worked. Shots were blocked, tackles were made as Moroccan numbers seemingly multiplied in the face of incessant waves of Portuguese attacks.

Portugal simply could not get the ball to break for it in the way Morocco had in that one first-half moment where the air in the stadium stilled, where the ball hung in the air for what seemed like an age, before being met by En-Nesyri.

The tall striker timed his run to perfection, meeting the hopeful cross from Yahia Attiyat Allah just a fraction of a second before goalkeeper Diogo Costa could get his hand on it.

It was in the aftermath of that goal when Morocco let their guard down for the only time in the game, allowing the ball to ricochet dangerously close to its goal. Portugal almost went level in that moment, with midfielder Bruno Fernandes hitting a strike from an improbable angle that came crashing off the bar.

That was as close as Morocco would let Portugal get. They regrouped and formed the impenetrable barrier that had pushed it further and further in the competition.

There would be near misses; it was Portugal after all. There were last-gasp challenges, stretched limbs that just deflected balls away. And then when those were not enough, there was Bono. The Moroccan goalkeeper with the rock star’s name refused to be beaten.

By the final minutes of the game, Morocco were reduced to 10 men with the substitute Walid Cheddira collecting two yellow cards in quick succession, but Morocco refused to be distracted from the task at hand. The final seconds were a blur played against the sound of whistling that threatened to make the ears bleed. And then, came the whistle that mattered.

While his teammates sank to their knees, Ronaldo brushed aside the good wishes of two Moroccan players and headed straight toward the tunnel, wiping away tears with his jersey. Morocco, swept up by the bedlam, summoned one final reserve of energy to embark in celebrations that will live long in memory. The team charged toward its fans massed behind the goal that refused to be breached, lifting their arms into the air, milking a moment that only the most optimistic member of its squad could have deemed possible when the journey began last month.

While one hero departs football’s biggest stage, the World Cup has given birth to a team of heroes for the Arab world. Morocco are not ready to say goodbye.