The dullest game in World Cup history

Switzerland and Ukraine were playing for a place in the World Cup quarter-finals but neither could score in 120 minutes and one of them didn’t even find the net in the penalty shootout

By Greg Lea for The Set Pieces, part of the Sport Network

Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder, but there are some things even the most steadfast of contrarians would struggle to find attractive. One such example was the last-16 match between Switzerland and Ukraine at the 2006 World Cup, a game so dull that dishwater should take offence if ever mentioned in the same sentence as this horrorshow.

Ukraine eventually emerged victorious after 120 excruciating minutes, Oleg Blokhin’s side triumphing in a penalty shootout that featured only a marginal increase in quality on what had gone on before. Reaching the quarter-finals in their first – and so far only – World Cup was a commendable accomplishment for Ukraine, but there’s an argument that both sides should have been immediately expelled from the tournament.

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