You had to feel a little sorry for Switzerland after they were knocked out of the tournament.

Kobi Kuhn's side managed to negotiate a tough group including France, South Korea and Togo.

In fact the Swiss finished top without conceding a goal and went into the second-phase match against Ukraine on a wave of confidence.

But that is where the dream ended in slightly bizarre circumstances.

The game went into extra time with the scores locked at 0-0 in a drab encounter.

And that is how it remained with both teams unable to make the breakthrough and fire up the fans.

So it came down to penalties and Switzerland were wasteful, going down 3-0 to exit the tournament.

It meant they became the first team to be knocked out of the finals without conceding a goal.

Swiss coach Kuhn said his players could not cope with the big occassion as they went into the history books for the wrong reasons.

"That was just a bad case of nerves," he said.

Switzerland's record in Germany was amazing because previously they were known as the team guaranteed to let goals in.

In their 22 World Cup ties before 2006 they conceded goals in each game - a total of 51.