Former Chelsea player Antonio Rudiger took to Instagram to congratulate his ex-teammate Hakim Ziyech for advancing in the World Cup.
The current Blue was a man on a mission yesterday, playing with a hunger and desire the Stamford Bridge crowd have never really seen from their man.
Morocco worked extremely hard to force Spain to a penalty shootout, with Ziyech one of the stars of the show.
When it came to spot kicks, the fired-up winger smashed his effort down the middle, cranking the pressure to an unmanageable level for yesterday’s favourites on paper.
Spain were perhaps missing the impact of their own Chelsea star, Cesar Azpilicueta.
National media were highly critical of the decision to replace the 33-year-old last time out against Japan, at a time the European side were leading.
Instead, Luis Enrique elected to hand Marcos Llorente his first start of the tournament there, a decision which definitely did not pay off.
Rudiger praises Ziyech
Ziyech meanwhile has achieved qualification to a stage of the World Cup he may never thought he would have seen. The sole remaining African representative were of course drawn in a group with Belgium and Croatia.
Their achievements so far deserve praise, especially Ziyech who had seemingly played his last game for his country at a point.
He was praised for his part in the win by former teammate Rudiger, whose emoji-led response congratulated his friend.
The Real Madrid man hardly enjoyed a positive World Cup.
Germany were dumped out the World Cup in the group stages, falling short of Spain and surprise package Japan.
Despite Kai Havertz’s heroics off the bench against Costa Rica, it wasn’t enough to save them from consecutive group stage exits at the World Cup.
Ziyech meanwhile will be preparing for a quarter-final matchup with Portugal, who look inspired without Cristiano Ronaldo up front.
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