Ukraine win battle of bores

Switzerland 0 Ukraine 0 (Ukraine win 3-0 on penalties): Brian Kerr once said that when he sees the crowd doing a Mexican wave he takes it as evidence that they are not sufficiently interested in the game.

Well here, there were Mexican waves aplenty as 45,000 clearly sought diversion from a game that, unlike Saturday's in Leipzig, few people, Italians aside, were happy to see go into extra time.

Not just Ukraine but also, perhaps, Italy were the winners as Oleg Blokhin's side progressed thanks to what was even a poor penalty shoot-out. Andriy Shevchenko must have rattled his manager by having his disappointing spot kick saved well enough by Pascal Zuberbuehler but the goalkeeper's outfield colleagues then turned in a thoroughly inept performances with their own attempts on goal. Marco Streller, Tranquillo Barnetta and Ricardo Cabanas failed to score while Artem Milevsky, Sergei Rebrov and Oleg Gusev found the target to earn their side a crack at Marcello Lippi's outfit in Friday's second quarter-final.

Switzerland, meanwhile, go out of the competition without ever having conceded a goal.

It was, at least, an exciting finale to a night that had already fallen well short of expectations. After a tedious opening, to be fair, the game did evolve into an interesting if not compelling contest, but the emphasis on defence by two sides keenly aware that chances to make the quarter-finals of a World Cup do not come along often prevented it ever really coming to life.

The flow of the contest was at least helped by a referee who made every effort to keep things moving, an approach the Swiss did well out of, a couple of bad challenges and some blatant gamesmanship going unpunished.

Often, there were the fingerprints of Sepp Blatter on Benito Archundia's performance, for the Mexican kept his notebook in his pocket after fouls that, prior to Sunday's fiasco in Nuremberg, would certainly have prompted a card.

In the end, it would be the 59th minute before Tranquillo Barnetta exhausted his patience with a body check on the edge of the area. Two minutes later Ricardo Cabanas was lucky to stay on the pitch for an appalling challenge on Andriy Nesmachny and a quarter an hour from the end should also have walked for a high and late challenge on Vladislav Vashchuk.

Long before then there had been one or two occasions when the players had threatened to take matters into their own hands as when, four minutes before the break, Philipp Degan chased down Nesmachny and swept the legs from under the defender in apparent revenge for an unpunished challenge a few moments later.

The game, though, was not so much dirty as dull, with both sides generally permitted to move the ball around without being recklessly impeded but neither willing to take advantage of the freedom. When they did seek to get forward the Swiss looked to the likes of Hakan Yakin, Tranquillo Barnetta and Raphael Wicky - all lying slightly behind lone striker Alexander Frei - to open up their opponents, but the Ukrainians proved resilient at the back.

Kobi Kuhn's men edged the possession in the early half and numerically dominated in terms of attempts on goal but only two really counted for much, Raphael Wicky's early shot saved well by Zuberbuehler and Frei's freekick crashing back off the angle of the post only for Barnetta to miscue his follow-up.

By then the Ukrainians had also hit the woodwork. For the most part their approach had been to break quickly from deep and look for Shevchenko inside the area or hold the ball up and set up an advancing midfielder for a shot from the edge of the area. Their best chance, however, came in the form of a free from the left, which Maksym Kalinichenko floated into the six-yard box, where the former Milan striker stole ahead of Johan Djourou to produce a downward header that bounced off the crossbar.

It wasn't the first time the 19 year-old Arsenal defender, earning only his fifth cap here in the absence of Philippe Senderos, had looked to be struggling and with just over half an hour gone Kuhn replaced him with the experienced Stephane Grichting.

Though the balance of the game shifted only marginally in favour of Ukraine after the break it was Blokhin's side who gradually started to look the more likely to score. Kuhn sent on Marco Streller to breathe life into his front line but it was Shevchenko who sent a 20 strike whistling just wide of the mark before Andriy Gusin met Kalinichenko's corner with a header that flew just inches wide. There was a strong penalty appeal too when Andriy Voronin went down under the weight of Ludovic Magnin and Grichting.

Three minutes from the end of extra time the Swiss too had a penalty claim when Andriy Gusin blocked Streller's shot but took the man in the process. Kuhn's men now looked the more anxious to avoid the lottery of a shoot-out and when it eventually came around it was easy to see why.

SUBSTITUTIONS

SWITZERLAND: Grichting for Djourou (33 mins), Streller for Yakin (64 mins), Lustrinelli for Frei (116 mins). Subs not used: Benaglio, Margairaz, Behrami, Coltorti, David Degen, Dzemaili, Gygax, Senderos, Spycher. Booked: Barnetta.

UKRAINE: Rotan for Kalinichenko (75 mins), Milevskiy for Voronin (110 mins), Rebrov for Vorobey (93 mins). Subs not used: Pyatov, Yatsenko, Yezerskiy, Nazarenko, Byelik, Shust.

Referee: Benito Archundia Tellez (Mexico).