Ukraine hold nerve in penalty shootout
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Ukraine set up a quarterfinal date with Italy after defeating Switzerland on penalties last night.
The Swiss missed three spotkicks, but Ukraine's Artem Milevskiy, Serghiy Rebrov and Oleg Gusev made no mistake to seal a 3-0 shoot-out victory.
During normal time Ukraine's Andriy Shevchenko glanced a header against the bar, while in reply Alexander Frei rattled the woodwork with a free-kick.
Competing in their first World Cup finals, Ukraine now meet Italy in the quarter-finals in Hamburg on Friday.
Shevchenko missed Ukraine's first penalty in the shoot-out, but as Marco Streller, Tranquillo Barnetta and Ricardo Cabanas failed with tame efforts, the Eastern European side progressed to the last eight.
Ukraine goalkeeper Olexandr Shovkovskiy saved the penalties of Streller and Cabanas, while Barnetta hit the bar with his spot-kick.
Switzerland's defeat means Kobi Kuhn's side exit Germany 2006 despite not conceding a goal in their three group games as well the 120 minutes of this match.
Ukraine coach Oleg Blokhin admitted his relief afterwards: "The teams were equal and had equal chances to win.
"We just had more luck. Like Russian roulette. It's not important who scored the goal. The whole team played."
Shevchenko added: "We suffered a lot and we're happy to have won for all Ukrainians."
And the new Chelsea signing insisted his side need not fear Italy in the next round.
"We do not have the greatest players, but we make up for that by making sacrifices for each other, by playing with a lot of heart," he said.
The Swiss missed three spotkicks, but Ukraine's Artem Milevskiy, Serghiy Rebrov and Oleg Gusev made no mistake to seal a 3-0 shoot-out victory.
During normal time Ukraine's Andriy Shevchenko glanced a header against the bar, while in reply Alexander Frei rattled the woodwork with a free-kick.
Competing in their first World Cup finals, Ukraine now meet Italy in the quarter-finals in Hamburg on Friday.
Shevchenko missed Ukraine's first penalty in the shoot-out, but as Marco Streller, Tranquillo Barnetta and Ricardo Cabanas failed with tame efforts, the Eastern European side progressed to the last eight.
Ukraine goalkeeper Olexandr Shovkovskiy saved the penalties of Streller and Cabanas, while Barnetta hit the bar with his spot-kick.
Switzerland's defeat means Kobi Kuhn's side exit Germany 2006 despite not conceding a goal in their three group games as well the 120 minutes of this match.
Ukraine coach Oleg Blokhin admitted his relief afterwards: "The teams were equal and had equal chances to win.
"We just had more luck. Like Russian roulette. It's not important who scored the goal. The whole team played."
Shevchenko added: "We suffered a lot and we're happy to have won for all Ukrainians."
And the new Chelsea signing insisted his side need not fear Italy in the next round.
"We do not have the greatest players, but we make up for that by making sacrifices for each other, by playing with a lot of heart," he said.
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