Yassine Bounou: The Moroccan goalkeeper who eliminated Spain from FIFA World Cup 2022

Yassine Bounou saves two out of three penalties to guide Morocco to a historic win over Spain in the Round of 16 stage of the FIFA World Cup 2022 on Tuesday. The 6 ft 5 in pulled off a couple of brilliant saves to keep the game 0-0 in the regulation time and during Morocco’s first-ever penalty World Cup penalty shootout, he ended up saving the kicks from Carlos Soler and Sergio Busquets.

Bounou went into the penalty shootout with a better save percentage from the spot in comparison to Unai Simon. While Simon had 21.4 per cent, the Morocco international had a save percentage of a little over 26 per cent. He also had the advantage of facing 22 penalties more than Simon.

Pablo Sarabia missed the first kick while Bounou was able to complete the next two saves. For Morocco, Abdelhamid Sabiri and Hakim Ziyech converted their chances while Unai Simon stopped the attempt from Badr Banoune. Achref Hakimi slotted the winning penalty to clinch the encounter.

Bounou currently plays for Sevilla since 2019-20 and has made 120 appearances across all competitions. Earlier, he has played for Atletico Madrid, Zaragoza and Girona. He also played for Morocco in the 2018 World Cup but his team was eliminated in the group stages.

This is not the first time that Bounou has grabbed the headlines during this year’s World Cup. He ended up not playing the game against Belgium despite singing the national anthem along with the team. The BBC reported that Bono suffered vision issues and was then replaced ahead of the kick-off.