PRAGUE, July 15, 2008 (AFP) - Experienced German coach Klaus Toppmoller has been dropped as a candidate for the vacant job of Czech national football coach, the Czech football federation announced on Tuesday.

Toppmoller, who led Bayer Leverkusen to the 2002 Champions League final, met with the federation's Vlastimil Kostal, who is heading the hunt for a replacement for veteran coach Karel Bruckner, on Monday.

'In spite of being able to find mutual agreement on a series of matters, following further phone calls, negotiations with Mr. Toppmoller were officially ended yesterday evening,' the federation said in a press release.

The two sticking points in talks, which could have resulted in the first foreign manager of the Czech team, were Toppmoller's insistence that he commute to his new job and not live in the country and his demand to have a German assistant, Kostal explained in the statement.

The federation is due to meet on Thursday with two candidates to choose from for the manager's post: Bruckner's former assistant and current manager of first division club FK Teplice, Petr Rada, and former national team manager and current sporting manager of Sparta Prague, Jozef Chovanec.

Bruckner, stepped down after the Czechs went out in the first round of Euro 2008 - it had always been his intention to step down once their interest in the competition was finished.