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Big hopes, early exits

Originally Published: March 14, 2010
By Leander Schaerlaeckens | ESPN.com

Each World Cup knows its surprises, its sweethearts, its Cinderella team. But for every team that goes further than it could reasonably be expected to, a country that should have moved on has to crash out early. Here then are the five most shocking first-round exits in World Cup history.

5. Soviet Union, 1990

In the late '80s, Ukrainian Valeriy Lobanovskiy had built the Soviet Union into one of the best national teams in the world. His form of total football, which he had conceived ...

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