Elevation: 4,150 Meters
A national team, a banned stadium, and why La Verde can't stop winning at home.
The Bolivian national soccer team, also known as La Verde, hasn’t lost a home game since October of 2023. So while La Verde have played in just three World Cups, and have only ever qualified for one (1994), they now have the longest active home winning streak in South America. And yet, La Verde are still only ranked 80th in the world.
It’s not unusual to be a good team at home.
From 1985 - 1994, the University of Miami won 58 straight home college football games while playing in the Orange Bowl - a stadium that was specifically designed to be deafening. But the Bolivian soccer team plays its home games in stadiums that have a different kind of advantage: They’re really, really, really high.
La Verde played for 80+ years at the Estadio Hernando Siles, which opened in 1930 and is located in the Andean mountain city of La Paz. At 3,637 meters above sea level, it remains one of the highest professional stadiums in the world.
And La Verde have not hesitated to capitalize on their home field advantage. Bolivia has participated 29 times in the Copa América, South America’s quadrennial international soccer tournament. They have reached the final only twice: 1963 (winner) and 1997 (runner-up). They hosted the tournament both times.
In May of 2007, after a match requiring bottled oxygen for players, the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) finally lodged a formal complaint with FIFA. The CBF cited health concerns in their complaint and threatened to boycott any continental games played at high altitude. Shortly after, FIFA announced a temporary ban on international matches played above 2,500m. The ban was repealed less than a year later after Bolivia and other Andean countries appealed.
So what does Bolivia, a country that is only about 40% mountainous, do after decades of complaints about the elevation of its stadiums? What would you do?
You’d build one even higher.
Screw it.
In 2017 Bolivia opened the brand new Estadio Municipal de El Alto, located at 4,150m above sea level. And finally in September of last year, the Bolivian Soccer Federation announced that La Verde would play all future home games there. The team hasn’t lost since.
In contrast, La Verde have only won 3 away games in the last five years.
Fun Fact: It can take up to 7 weeks for the body to fully, properly acclimate to an elevation above 4,000 meters.
Teams in various sports from around the world - in cities like Denver, Mexico City, Chail, and Lhasa - have used elevation to their advantage for decades. Players on visiting teams may struggle to get enough oxygen to their brain and muscles, causing altitude sickness, fatigue, and muscle failure.
While El Alto is a big advantage for the Bolivian national team, the highest FIFA sanctioned stadium in the world, actually belongs to its neighbor Peru. The Estadio Daniel Alcides Carrión, located in the Peruvian city of Cerro de Pasco, is 4,380m above sea level. That’s still about 1000m less than Everest Base Camp, which is yet to open its first stadium.
