Switzerland coach Vladimir Petkovic says they leave the Euros full of pride after their quarterfinal shootout defeat to Spain.

An equaliser by captain Xherdan Shaqiri in the second half cancelled out an early own goal and sent the teams to extra time.

Then in the shootout two of the Swiss penalty kicks were stopped by Spain goalkeeper Unai Simon while Ruben Vargas blazed over as the Swiss failed to repeat their heroics against France in the round of 16.

"All these players were the heroes of the night. They would have deserved to go to the semi-finals," Petkovic told a news conference. "I cannot complain and I take my hat off to the team."

Petkovic said he could not blame Vargas for hitting his penalty over the bar in the shootout, saying instead that his player had demonstrated mental strength by even taking a spot-kick after such a long and gruelling match.

Manuel Akanji's and Fabian Schar's penalty kicks were both stopped by Simon.

"We had to spend all our power and energy, and our energy ran out a little," said Petkovic. "Penalty kicks are a lottery and we lost it."

Petkovic said he had not properly seen the tackle in the 77th minute that led to the red card against Remo Freuler - who had an assist for the Switzerland equaliser - but thought it had looked more like a minor foul.

Freuler slid to win the ball back but caught Gerard Moreno in the process.

"I question it a little bit, to be honest," Petkovic said. "He (Freuler) maybe touched him a little."