page_title: Bolivia national football team
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Bolivia national football team / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Bolivia national football team 12.10.2015
context_page_description: The Bolivia national football team, also known as La Verde, has represented Bolivia in international football since 1926. Organized by the Bolivian Football Federation, it is one of the 10 members of FIFA's South American Football Confederation.
  After playing in the 1930 and 1950 World Cups, they qualified just once — in 1994 where they lost 1–0 to defending champions Germany in the tournament's opening game in Chicago. Bolivia have never advanced past the first round of any World Cup, and have only scored one goal, in 1994. However, they did win the Copa América at home in 1963, and finished as runners-up in their following tournament as hosts in 1997. In the Copa América 2015 in Chile, after defeating Ecuador 3–2, they advanced to the quarter-finals for the first time since 1997. This also ended a non-winning streak in the Copa América, with their last win being on 28 June 1997, when they defeated Mexico 1–0 in the semi-finals.
context_section_description: Bolivia debuted in international football in 1926, one year after the Bolivian Football Federation was founded. As participants at the 1926 South American Championship in Chile, Bolivia scored first against the hosts, but wound up being defeated by the Chileans 7–1. Bolivia also lost their following three matches, 0–5 against Argentina, 1–6 against Paraguay and 0–6 against Uruguay.
  In 1930, Bolivia was one of the teams invited to the inaugural edition of the World Cup, held in Uruguay. Drawn in Group 2 of the 1930 World Cup, Bolivia lost both its games 4–0, first to Yugoslavia at the Estadio Parque Central, and then to Brazil in the Estadio Centenario. The match versus the Yugoslavs would be the last match against non-South American opposition for Bolivia until 1972 – when they again met Yugoslavia. They returned in the 1950 World Cup, where Argentina's withdrawal from the qualifiers led Bolivia to an automatic berth. With three teams declining to play in Brazil, Bolivia was put in a group of two along with Uruguay. The Bolivians' only game was an 8–0 defeat to Uruguay at the Estádio Independência in Belo Horizonte.
  Bolivia's greatest football achievement was the 1963 South American Championship title, which they hosted and had the advantage of being better used to the higher altitudes. Afterwards, the country only started to resurge at an international level with the creation of the Academia Tahuichi Aguilera in Santa Cruz de la Sierra in 1978, a football school that revealed players such as Marco Etcheverry, Erwin Sánchez and Luis Cristaldo. Under Spanish coach Xabier Azkargorta and featuring nine players from Tahuichi, Bolivia surprisingly became the first team to beat Brazil in the South American qualifiers while playing them in La Paz, and qualified for the 1994 World Cup finishing second in Group B of the CONMEBOL qualifiers behind the Brazilians themselves.  Bolivia was drawn into the tournament's Group C, and got selected as the adversary of defending champions Germany in the tournament's opening match. Bolivia played a great first half, outplaying Germany. In the second half, Lothar Matheus took a 40-yard run and with a high elbow to the jaw leveled Marco El Diablo Etcheverry. Etcheverry retaliated and was sent off. Eventually, Bolivia lost on an offside goal by Klinsman. Following a goalless draw with South Korea at Foxboro Stadium, Bolivia returned to Chicago and lost 3–1 to Spain, with Sánchez scoring the first ever Bolivian goal in the World Cup. Following that Bolivia again hosted the South American Championship, now known as Copa América, in 1997. Again, the team reached the final, to finish as runner-up to Brazil.
  In the 2015 Copa América in Chile, Bolivia were in Group A, with Chile, Mexico, and Ecuador. In their match against Mexico, Bolivia drew 0–0. However, against Ecuador, Bolivia won 3–2, with goals from Raldes, Smedberg-Dalence, and Martins. From this victory against Ecuador, Bolivia made it to the next round, the quarter-finals, for the first time since the 1997 tournament, in which they hosted it. Bolivia were defeated by Peru 1–3 in the quarter-finals of the tournament. Bolivia's only goal of the game was a penalty in the last minutes of the match by Marcelo Martins Moreno.
caption: Bolivia before a match against Ecuador at the 2018 World Cup qualifiers.
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