El fútbol Boliviano no tiene gran historia. El equipo siempre ha tratado de…

Wait, you wanted me to do this entire preview in English? Fiiiine!

Bolivia is not well-known for a lot of things, fútbol being one of them. As I mentioned in the overall Copa América post, it does have the world’s most dangerous road as described in the Top Gear Bolivia special. The thing that the special pointed out which is really interesting is that Bolivia is a land of contrasts.

On the east side of the country, the Amazon rainforest rules and it is hot and humid and jungle-y. As you progress to the Westsiiiide, the elevation climbs, the temperature drops as does the humidity, and you are in a high-altitude desert.

Not just any high-altitude desert. It is the Atacama, which is the world’s dryest desert

It is in this setting that the plot of the worst Daniel Craig-era James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, unfolded.

Seriously, the country is running out of water when two-thirds of the country are situated in the Amazonian rainforest?!? And they managed to make a Russian supermodel look plain as day!

I call RAYCESS! But that is a post for another time.

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Bolivia is named after Simón Bolívar, one of the Libertadores that freed the South American states from Spanish rule in the early 1800s. As with most South American countries, the transition from colony to independent democratic state took a LONG time. So long that it wasn’t until 1982 that true democracy started to take hold and it took until the 1990s for that to be solidified. Before that, it was all dictatorships, wars, and military juntas.

The main economic attraction and point of contention in Bolivia has always been its precious metals. The Spanish exploited the land for silver and, after they left, the next metal to be mined and exploited was tin. Lately, lithium and natural gas have become important exports. However, in order to reduce reliance on finite resources, the country has started to develop its tourism infrastructure and is trying to reshape its economy in that direction.

Bolivia shares my favourite lake in the world with Perú: Lake Titicaca. Yes, that is extremely funny in Spanish. It’s basically Lake BoobyDoody.

The country has technically two capitals: La Paz, which has the presidential palace, the Congress, and is considered the seat of government, and Sucre, which is the capital per the constitution and has the Bolivian Supreme Court.

Although it’s technically land-locked, it has an international port in Rosario, Argentina that carries goods to the Atlantic Ocean. I should also mention that the Pacific Ocean is much closer geographically and that there was a chunk of land between the Pacific and Bolivia in northern Chile that used to belong to Bolivia but doesn’t anymore because war and this caused a decades-long dispute that ultimately got settled by an international court.

Have I mentioned that South America is a complicated place?

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As for their fútbol, the Bolivians don’t have much of a history although the game started being played in 1914. The Bolivian league expanded beyond La Paz in 1950 and by 1960 was a true national championship. Interestingly, many clubs have English names such as “The Strongest”, “Sport Boys”, “Always Ready”, and “Destroyers”.

I do not know if this is where AYSO got the idea…

The highest achievement of the Bolivian National Team was a Copa América triumph in 1963, which they hosted. They have qualified for the World Cup three times: 1930, 1950, and 1994. Their best result was a 0-0 draw against South Korea in 1994. Erwin “Platini” Sánchez scored the only goal in Bolivian World Cup history the next game against Spain in a 1-3 loss. He is probably Bolivia’s most famous player, having spent the bulk of his career playing in Portugal.

As is the unfortunate case in Latin American countries with fucked up governments, the talented players that Bolivia has produced have not been able to translate their personal and club successes into national team success. Marco Etcheverry is another player from that generation that gave the Bolivian people hope only for the reality that the rest of the team was not up to par to hit hard during games.

Those players needed to leave Bolivia to develop and those left behind were not able to keep up due to the bad infrastructure, corruption and diversion of resources, and just general disorganization.

Sadly, the story hasn’t changed much. True, the government has gotten its shit together a little better, but overall the country is still poor and that makes it difficult to cultivate the talent that does exist. Hopefully, with a little more economic growth and a change for the better in living conditions for the Bolivian people, sporting success will follow.

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Group Matches

Bolivia was placed in Group A with the host Brazil, Venezuela, and Perú. This is actually a good thing and may enable the team to progress to the knockout stages. Remember that the top two teams in each group and the two best third place teams advance.

Their first match is the Copa América opener against the hosts, Brazil, so we can chalk that up to a sure loss.

However, all Bolivia needs to move on in the tournament is a draw against Perú in Río De Janeiro and a win against Venezuela in Belo Horizonte.

I say that is doable.

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Predicción

Bolivia will make the knockout stage. Depending on who they face, they could maybe win one more game, but that’s probably it.

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I leave you with perhaps the most famous song related to Bolivia from Enanitos Verdes, an Argentinian band:

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