Micho admits Uganda's exit from Africa Cup of Nations is 'hard to accept'

Milutin Sredojevic, known as Micho, gave Uganda hope as the Cranes returned to the Africa Cup of Nations for the first time since 1978. But the Yugoslavian manager was unable to disguise his pain after the national team was bounced from the tournament by virtue of a 1-0 defeat to Egypt on Saturday.

Speaking after the Group D fixture, Micho confessed Uganda was taught a hard lesson and confessed the result is difficult to process. The match looked set to end a scoreless draw until, in the 89th minute, Abdallah El Said rocketed the ball between Denis Onyango's legs, shooting down the Cranes' hopes of progressing to the quarter-finals.

Related: Abdallah El Said scores 89th-minute winner as Egypt eliminates Uganda

"This level of competition demands total focus of concentration on details that decide games," Micho said, according to BBC Sport. "We have come after 39 years and paid for the lesson in a hard way. If you lose in a convincing way you accept it, but in this way it is very hard to accept."

Micho also admitted to losing focus at the end of the second half, saying: "We couldn't keep that concentration up to the last moment - when we were supposed to close the game out we allowed a counter-attack and the experience and quality of Egypt's Mohamed Salah made the difference. We came here to play three cup finals - the first we lost on a penalty to Ghana and the second we lost in the last minute on the counter-attack."

Messages of support rained down after Uganda's elimination, including one from Kifefe Kizza-Besigye, a political and human-rights activist who was the main-opposition candidate in the country's election last year.

Only pride will be at stake for Uganda when the Cranes play their final group-stage encounter against Mali on Wednesday.