Switzerland playmaker Tranquillo Barnetta believes playing in Germany is helping fuel the team's progress in the 2006 World Cup.

Most of the players for the multilingual state are German speakers and many play their club football in Germany, and Barnetta believes that has played its part with Switzerland reaching the knockout stages where they will play Ukraine for a place in the quarter-finals.

Barnetta, 21, admits even if they are not playing at home, it sometimes feels as though they are.

He said: "I believe the Swiss and the Germans get on well. You can see that at the stadium - the fans are similar and behave in a similar way."

Barnetta insisted the language problem was no issue - he is a German speaker although his family hails from Bergamo in Italy.

He said: "It's not a problem at all - we are all Swiss and there is a good mood in the team.

"It's really great playing for this young team - it's a beautiful thing."

Barnetta, who scored the second goal in the 2-0 win over Togo in Dortmund, will not predict how far the Swiss will go in the competition, saying only: "We only look as far ahead as the next game.

"Now we are at a stage of the competition where every team is at a certain level - that includes Ukraine," said the Bayer Leverkusen player.