The numbers and words painted on the artificial grass next to the field of Estadio Municipal de El Alto, in Bolivia’s highest and fastest growing city, are a source of pride for locals. They also serve as a warning to opponents.

“4150 MTS ALT. SE JUEGA DONDE SE VIVE.”

“We play where we live” is the slogan next to the four figures that reveal what a special location this is for a football stadium. At 4,150 meters above sea level, the new home of the Bolivian national team in El Alto is about as challenging as it comes to playing at altitude.

Venezuela was the first international team to visit the stadium in September during a World Cup qualifier, and it says everything about the difficulties that awaited their players: they spent the days leading up to the match practicing breathing exercises and acclimatizing to the low air pressure. using hyperbaric chambers.

Venezuela lost 4-0.

Next up was Colombia on Thursday evening. Since February 2022, they had lost just once, and that was the 2024 Copa America final against Argentina.

Colombia lost 1–0 despite playing much of the match with an extra man after Bolivian midfielder Hector Cuellar was sent off after 20 minutes.

(AIZAR RALDES/AFP via Getty Images)

It was a remarkable start to life in El Alto.

It is nothing new that Bolivia is a difficult place to play football. In his book ¡Golazo!: A History of Latin American Football, Andreas Campomar writes about how “for years, Bolivian football has created a fortress out of the thin air of the Andes,” making the country formidable opponents on home soil and contributing to some notable results, most notably a 6-1 win against Argentina in 2009.

Diego Maradona, the Argentine coach, was disappointed. “Every goal was like a stab in my heart,” he said.

As for his players’ lungs, Maradona refused to use the high altitude in La Paz – 3,660 meters – as an excuse, which was probably wise given that he had played in the same stadium a year earlier, at the age of 47, to his support for Bolivia after FIFA introduced a ban on international matches at more than 2,750 meters above sea level in 2007.

FIFA’s reasoning at the time was that high altitude was a potential hazard to players’ health and distorted fair competition – something Bolivia vehemently denied. Evo Morales, then president of Bolivia, denounced what he described as ‘football apartheid’.

The ban was quickly lifted and La Paz was eventually able to host international competitions again, although complaints from some countries – most notably Brazil – never really went away.

After a goalless draw at the Estadio Hernando Siles in La Paz in 2017, Brazilian star Neymar posted an image on Instagram that went viral. “Inhuman to play in these conditions. Pitch, height, ball… everything is bad,” he wrote. The accompanying photo showed Neymar and his Brazilian teammates wearing oxygen masks on a sofa and armchairs, in full gear, at the end of the match. It was a bizarre scene.

Now, seven years later, Bolivia has taken a step further by choosing to play matches in El Alto; in fact about 1,840 steps further if we count in feet. El Alto is 560 meters higher than La Paz – a city where tourists often take days and sometimes even weeks to adjust to the thinner air that forces their lungs to work harder to deliver oxygen to the bloodstream.

All of this makes you wonder how the opposition players will cope with playing 90 minutes in El Alto – and to what extent Bolivia can take advantage of what has been described as an ordeal by the federation.

“Football is made up of details. It doesn’t mean we are going to win with these (changing stadiums),” Oscar Villegas, the Bolivian coach, told the Associated Press before the Venezuela match. “We try to pay attention to the details that allow us to be more effective.

Oscar Villegas’ Bolivian team has twelve points from nine World Cup qualifiers (Aizar Raldes/AFP via Getty Images)

“In El Alto we are going to try to be as intense as possible and let them know that they are on a new field where we have been unbeatable (a reference to Bolivian club teams that play in the stadium in international competitions such as the Copa Libertadores and Sudamericana).

“The psychological and emotional aspect also plays a role. It is something that will help us enormously.”

Bearing in mind that the national team was in a state of turmoil before Venezuela’s victory – they had lost five of their six World Cup qualifiers, leaving them second from bottom in the group, and also suffered three consecutive defeats at the Copa America in June — it’s hard not to be cynical about the motivation behind the Bolivian Football Federation’s decision to play matches in El Alto, where the stadium capacity is significantly lower than in La Paz. In short: it smacks of desperation.

An alternative view would be that Bolivia is simply making the most of its natural habitat and is no different than a country that typically plays games in extreme heat or sub-zero temperatures.

“I don’t think it’s an important aspect for Bolivia to win – I see it in a different way,” said Marco Etcheverry, considered one of Bolivia’s greatest footballers. The Athletics before Venezuela wins.

“Bolivia is going through a difficult moment in terms of players and directors – they have a lot of problems now. The organization that defends the players – the union – does not engage in dialogue with the administrators. It’s very bad.

“They appointed a coach who is a good friend of mine and for whom I have a special affection, to resist people so that they don’t get too angry because they wanted a Bolivian coach. I think they did it more (moving games to El Alto) to calm the fans down. I think they think they will win in El Alto – hopefully they do. But I don’t think it will be a big advantage for Bolivia.”

How much playing at high altitude has helped Bolivia over the years has long been a subject of debate. Some in Bolivia believe that all the talk about altitude gave the team a psychological edge over its opponents more than anything else, and that the possible physical effects, including nausea, headaches, fatigue and vomiting, are often overestimated.

What we can say for sure is that Bolivia has been a very different proposition on home soil. Thirteen of their fifteen points in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers came in Bolivia, up from fourteen in the previous campaign, which included another victory over Argentina (2-0). Since moving to El Alto, they have won two from two, including against the team ranked ninth in the world, and have climbed to sixth in the group. Finishing in that position will qualify them for the 2026 World Cup.

Probably the best way to illustrate the difference playing at home makes for Bolivia is to look at their away form. Their impressive 2-1 win away to Chile in September was only their second competitive win away from the country in the past 28 years.

For all teams traveling to Bolivia, adjustment is considered essential. Mario Kempes, World Cup winner with Argentina, tells a story about how national coach Omar Sivori decided to pick two completely different teams to play Bolivia home and away in 1973, when the matches were only a fortnight apart. allow one group of players to acclimatize to high altitude. Kempes was in the so-called ghost team that won 1-0 in Bolivia.

“It’s very difficult to play at high altitude, you can feel that. But it is doable,” Kempes said The New York Times in 2009. “We went fifteen days in advance to prepare. It was the right way. You do need extra time. But today there is very little time.

“Yes, some countries have height on their side, but if you don’t have the players, that’s really not an advantage.”

This ties in with Etcheverry’s views. “I think the altitude myth used to be a source of fear, but now with technology you can research everything – from what to eat to combat the altitude, to when to drink water, what quality of food that you need, the rest and specific training. Now teams go there (to Bolivia) and have fewer problems than previous times because managers are prepared.”

That’s not to say there aren’t physical effects when playing at high altitude. “The recovery is slower,” Etcheverry explains. “It doesn’t stop you from running: you do everything the same. The only problem is that if you put in the effort, your recovery won’t be as quick. If there is a move that requires a lot of effort, run 30 meters and give a cross; that’s possible. But running back and breathing is what’s hard. That will cost you.”

Then there is the unusual behavior of the ball to take into account. When Daniel Passarella was in charge of Argentina, they lost an away match against Ecuador in Quito, a city more than 2,800 meters above sea level, in 1996, prompting the coach to make a comment that has never been forgotten. “En la altura la pelota no dobla,” said Passarella afterwards.

So was Passarella right: is it true that the ball does not bend at high altitude or at least behaves differently?

Etcheverry smiles. “The speed, the time, the space the ball covers is different, that’s true,” he says.

“It’s going faster,” Etcheverry adds, gesturing with his hand to indicate the sudden change in trajectory. “It’s like the ball is going in a straight line, let’s say, and it doesn’t have that downward curve at the end as it falls. It falls (immediately) and that is complicated for goalkeepers.”

Claudio Taffarel, the former Brazil goalkeeper, could hardly blame Etcheverry’s shot from an acute angle between his legs and over the line for the height in 1993, when Bolivia inflicted a famous 2-0 defeat against the team that would later win the World Cup win. Cup 12 months later.

Bolivia qualified for the World Cup finals in the United States in 1994 but have not returned to that stage since. Their journey to put that right continues with a helping hand from the unlikely environment of El Alto.

(Top photo: Aizar Raldes/AFP via Getty Images)