Switzerland took 23 matches to register their maiden World Cup clean sheet – more than any other nation. The Nati got their first shutout at their eighth global finals in 2006, with Pascal Zuberbuhler surprisingly inspiring it against Zinedine Zidane, Franck Ribery, Thierry Henry and France in their opener. Even more amazingly, it set off a sequence of four clean sheets, with a penalty-shootout defeat to Ukraine in the last 16 making Switzerland the first team in history to finish a World Cup without conceding. Philipp Degen, Ludovic Magnin, Patrick Muller, Philippe Senderos and Johann Vogel were other key defensive figures in the run.

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