Ukraine coach Oleg Blokhin revealed he had to retreat to the dressing room as he "simply could not take" the excitement of the dramatic spot-kick win over Switzerland.

Blokhin's side booked their passage to the World Cup quarter-finals for the first time in their history but only after a penalty shootout which saw Chelsea's £30million signing Andriy Shevchenko miss the first spot-kick before the Swiss missed three in a row to send Ukraine through.

Blokhin admitted his troops were lucky in winning the shootout 3-0 after the match had ended 0-0 after extra-time.

"The teams were equal, "Blokhin said.

"We were just lucky. A penalty shoot-out is like Russian roulette. I did not see the penalties myself because after watching 120 minutes on the sidelines it was simply too much to take for me.

"So I went to the locker room."

Blokhin had come under pressure after shaky performances in the group stages, but today's performance was "proof" that his coaching methods paid off.

"Nobody really had confident in us," he said.

"Most people had already written us off. Some thought we had played like beginners, especially in the 1-0 match against Tunisia.

"The criticism was very harsh. But today everybody could see that we could play high quality football."