Senegal were hauled off by coach Pape Thiaw after Morocco were handed a penalty in the dying minutes.
After ten minutes of delay, Al Nassr striker Sadio Mane managed to convince his teammates to return to the pitch. Brahim promptly blew his penalty for Morocco, which took the tie into extra-time.
And Pape Gueye, of Villarreal, struck Senegal's winner to avoid the final going to a penalty shootout.
As soon as Brahim approached the bench after the penalty howler, visibly distraught, even Morocco coach Walid Regragui seemed to reprimand him. Then, shortly after, he decided to substitute the midfielder.
Brahim left to a chorus of hometown boos. He could be seen dejected, crying, heartbroken, even when he went up on stage to collect the award for top scorer of the tournament, with 5 goals in 7 matches.
On RMC Sports, French coach and analyst Régis Brouard directly accused him: “I’ll hold it against him for the rest of my life. It’s disrespectful to the match, the final, the continent, to take a penalty like that. Disrespectful to his coach and his team.”
Khalid Boulahrouz also was harsh on Brahim: “You’re not Zidane, you’re not Ronaldo, you’re not Hakimi. You don’t have that status. You may have scored five goals… but this is extremely painful,” said the former Holland international, of Moroccan origin.
The miss was so blatant that some believe it may have been intentional given the controversy around the original penalty call.
But Senegal goalkeeper Edouard Mendy, formerly of Chelsea, insisted: “Of course not. Let's be serious. Does anyone really think that, with one minute left and an entire country waiting for this title for 50 years, we could agree on something like that? He wanted to score, and I did my job by stopping him, nothing more."