This evening at 22:00 Kyiv time in Cologne, the match between Ukraine and Switzerland will take place, the winner of which advances to the quarterfinals of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, where they will play against the winner of the Italy-Australia pair.
The match between the national teams of Ukraine and Switzerland will be refereed by Mexican referee Benito Archundia.
Regarding the match with Switzerland, the coach of the Ukrainian national team, Oleh Blokhin, said that he does not know who can win it.
"Playoff matches, as you can see, are elimination games, and any team can win," he said. "The Swiss national team is a good team, which they proved in the group stage as well, but I think since we also made it to the round of 16 — we are also not the worst team, even though we are criticized that we supposedly don't play the right kind of football. A lot will depend on the psychological mindset of the players, although we also have many personnel problems due to injuries and yellow cards, so we will finalize the lineup right before the match itself."