Serbia & Montenegro football association president Tomislav Karadzic has admitted he was expecting his country's early World Cup exit.

Playing in their first - and only - finals under the Serbo-Montenegrin flag, Ilija Petkovic's side were drawn in arguably the most difficult group.

Despite conceding only one goal in qualifying, they lost their opening Group C game against Holland 1-0 before being taken apart by Argentina, who ran in six goals in Friday's second match.

Karadzic was angry with that particular performance but is otherwise philosophical about the side's results.

"Of course I couldn't say earlier in my capacity as the FSSCG president, that we would not make it past the group stage, but our early exit is realistic," Karadzic said.

"Reaching the World Cup finals was a success and the best we could do after being drawn in the toughest preliminary group.

"But we are not happy, especially not with the 6-0 drubbing by Argentina," he said.

Karadzic believes the team's cause was not helped by a knee injury to key defender Nemanja Vidic.

"We thought we could do more but Nemanja Vidic's injury and a string of other mishaps have put paid to our hopes," he said, adding he accepted his share of the blame.

"It would be wrong to blame everything on coach Ilija Petkovic and the players, I took credit for the success too and I therefore also feel responsible for the failure."

Serbia and Montenegro did not enjoy the happiest of build-ups to the tournament, with Petkovic's son Dusan quitting the squad in a row over nepotism.

They may only have pride to play for in their final group game on Wednesday but the players have been warned they face fines if they fail to take the match seriously.

The next World Cup will see Serbia competing as a separate nation from Montenegro following a referendum in Montenegro last month.