Egypt were kicked out of the competition at the hands of minnows Costa Rica, who stunned Cairo Stadium with a 2-0 victory over the hosts on Tuesday.

"I am responsible for this defeat, the players are not to blame," Soukup said in the post-match conference.

"It is a very difficult time for us, we made the same errors and, as usual, despite our efforts to avoid this dreadful mistake, we conceded from a dead-ball situation.

"We had a few chances to score but didn't make the most of them and, after the first goal, we just couldn't get back into the game."

Soukup, whose contract with Egypt runs out by the end of this month, guided Czech Republic to second place in the 2007 tournament in Canada.