Bolivia national football team

Infobox National football team
Name = Bolivia
Badge = Federacion Boliviana de Futbol logo.svg
FIFA Trigramme = BOL
FIFA Rank = 71
Elo Rank = 58
Nickname = La Verde (The Green one)
Association = Federación Boliviana
de Fútbol
Confederation = CONMEBOL (South America)
Coach = flagicon|Bolivia Erwin Sánchez
Assistant Coach = flagicon|Bolivia Luis Ramallo
Captain = Ronald Raldes
Most caps = Luis Cristaldo, Marco Sandy (93)
Top scorer = Victor Ugarte (16)
Home Stadium = Estadio Hernando Siles
1st ranking date = August 1993
FIFA max = 18
FIFA max date = July 1997
FIFA min = 114
FIFA min date = July 2003

pattern_la1=_whiteborder|pattern_b1=_bol07h|pattern_ra1=_whiteborder
leftarm1=00931F|body1=00931F|rightarm1=00931F|shorts1=FFFFFF|socks1=FFFFFF
pattern_la2=_borderonwhite|pattern_b2=_bol07h|pattern_ra2=_borderonwhite
leftarm2=00931F|body2=FFFFFF|rightarm2=00931F|shorts2=00931F|socks2=00931F

First game = Flagicon|Chile Chile 7 - 1 Bolivia Flagicon|Bolivia (Santiago, Chile; 12 October, 1926)
Largest win = Flagicon|Bolivia Bolivia 7 - 0 Venezuela flagicon|Venezuela (La Paz, Bolivia; 22 August, 1993)
Flagicon|Bolivia Bolivia 9 - 2 Haiti Flagicon|Haiti (La Paz, Bolivia; 5 March, 2000)
Largest loss = Flagicon|Peru|state Peru 9 - 0 Bolivia Flagicon|Bolivia (Lima, Peru; 6 November, 1927)
Flagicon|Brazil Brazil 10 - 1 Bolivia Flagicon|Bolivia (São Paulo, Brazil; 10 April, 1949)

World cup apps = 3
World cup first = 1930
World cup best = Round 1, 1930, 1950, 1994
Regional name = Copa América
Regional cup apps = 23
Regional cup first = 1926
Regional cup best = Winners, 1963
Confederations cup apps = 1
Confederations cup first = 1999
Confederations cup best = 1st round, 1999

The Bolivia national football team is the national team of Bolivia and is controlled by the Federación Boliviana de Fútbol. It is historically one of the weakest teams in CONMEBOL. After playing in the 1930 and 1950 World Cups, they qualified just once -- in 1994. There, playing champions Germany in the tournament's opening game in Chicago, Bolivia lost 1-0 as Marco Etcheverry, considered the nation's best player of the 1990s, got sent off just three minutes after coming on as a substitute. They never advanced past the first round of any World Cup, but did win the Copa América once, in 1963.

High altitude

Since FIFA considered that high altitude football stadiums represent a high risk to the footballers health, a ban for stadiums above the 2500 meters (1.5 miles) above the sea level was imposed. As the Estadio Hernando Siles in La Paz, Bolivia, is sited at 3637 meters (2.3 miles) above sea level, official football matches were banned from this stadium, although FIFA later stated that only the games for the World Cup Qualifiers were banned from this stadium, statement that went against the purpose of banning games, since the health of footballers that played in international tournaments such as the Copa Libertadores and the Copa Sudamericana would be risked. As a result, FIFA backed down acknowledging Bolivia the right to pick La Paz as their main venue, alleging its historic relevancy through out Bolivian football history.

So far FIFA hasn't provided proper studies about the consequences of playing football at either high altitudes, high temperatures or polluted environments. La Paz is known as the preparation venue of many international athletes, such as multiple world champion and Olympic Games gold and silver medal winner Chris Hoy.

Competitive Record

FIFA World Cup record

Pan American Games record

*1951 to 1971 - "Did not compete"
*1975 - Round 2
*1979 to 2003 - "Did not compete"
*2007 - Fourth place

Famous players

Recent and future international matches

Current Squad

The following players were called for WCQ against Peru on October 11, and Uruguay on October 15, 2008.

Recent Call-ups

Titles