AHEAD of facing Lionel Messi and Argentina in Buenos Aires this week, the Bolivia men’s national team sits in one of South America’s 2026 World Cup qualification spots.

A win against Colombia on Thursday night, despite going down to 10 men after 20 minutes, nudged them above Paraguay and Venezuela in the standings.

Venezuela themselves earned a great result on Thursday night, drawing 1-1 with Argentina in Maturin thanks to a goal from Salomon Rondon.

Bolivia might take some encouragement from this as they go into their own game against the defending World Champions and 2026 qualifying table-toppers on Tuesday night.

The 20-year-old attacker, Miguel Terceros, who plays his club football in Brazil for Santos, has been something of a revelation for Bolivia, and his outstanding goal to give them the win against Colombia was his third of this qualifying campaign.

But Miguel Terceros is not the only asset Bolivia have used to their advantage in Conmebol’s highly competitive World Cup qualifying league, from which six of 10 teams automatically qualify for the 2026 tournament proper.

Bolivia played their first three home games of 2026 World Cup qualifying in the country’s capital city, La Paz, 12,000 feet above sea level.

They lost two, against Argentina and Ecuador, and won one, against a Peru side who currently sit winless bottom of the table.

Bolivia also lost all three of their away games in this period — in September and November last year — to Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. This might have been expected, though, as at this point, Bolivia had not won an away World Cup qualifier since 1993.

The defeats at home to Argentina and Ecuador were nothing to be ashamed of, either. Ecuador have also proved themselves a handy outfit in this World Cup qualifying cycle, and were it not for a three-point deduction for some false information on the registration form of a player used during 2022 World Cup qualifying, would sit in fourth place in the table, above Brazil.

But in a bid to qualify for their fourth-ever World Cup, and their first since the last time the World Cup was hosted in the United States in 1994, Bolivia has pulled out all the stops by changing their home stadium and moving up in the world. And you can’t get much further up than the world’s highest major city.

El Alto (the clue is also in the name) is a city adjacent to La Paz but at an increased elevation to the Bolivian capital, sitting at over 13,000 feet above sea level.

Public transport from La Paz towards the stadium in El Alto is available via the teleferico cable car, which gives an idea of the ascent involved.

From the September 2024 international break onwards, Bolivia moved their home games to the Estadio Municipal de El Alto, and have a perfect record of three wins out of three since.

They defeated Venezuela in the first game in El Alto, rifling four goals into the net through the thin air with no reply from their opponents for what was only their second win in this World Cup qualifying cycle.

Given their away record, there may not have been high expectations from the subsequent game in Chile, but at a reasonably high 1,300 feet in Santiago, Bolivia came away with their first win in a competitive game outside their home country since 2015 and their first away win in World Cup qualifying since 1993, with Miguel Terceros scoring the winner. Chile may wish in hindsight that they had played the game at a sea-level venue.

Then came the win against Colombia last week to give Bolivia a fourth win in qualifying, putting them on the same number of wins as Brazil, Uruguay, Ecuador and Colombia.

It is also worth noting that the Bolivian club side which uses the stadium, Always Ready, have won all of the continental games they have played at home this season.

They won both home legs in their Copa Libertadores (Champions League equivalent) qualifying games, putting six past Peruvian side Sporting Cristal in the home leg as part of a 7-4 aggregate win before eventually being knocked out on penalties by Uruguayan side Nacional in Montevideo.

Dropping from the Libertadores into the Copa Sudamericana (Europa League equivalent), Always Ready then won all five of their home games in the tournament, conceding just once.

That one goal conceded saw them knocked out at the quarter-final stage 4-3 on aggregate by Ecuadorian side LDU Quito, who themselves are used to playing at an altitude of 9,000 feet in Ecuador’s own capital in the Andes.

Nineteen of the 28 players called up to the Bolivia squad for this international break play their club football in Bolivia. Sixteen of those play in cities with an elevation higher than 8,000 feet, while midfielder Gabriel Villamil plays for LDU Quito.

Playing at such altitude is not without its controversy. In 2007 Fifa introduced a ban on games being played above 2,500 metres (8,200 feet) after complaints from Brazilian teams that the lack of oxygen made the games unplayable and potentially unsafe for players not used to the conditions.

The ban only lasted a year after Bolivia were successful in overturning it with support from all Conmebol nations except Brazil. The late Diego Maradona, then aged 47, played a game in La Paz to support Bolivia’s case, aiming to demonstrate that if he can play a game at that height, then active professional footballers can.

It restored the geographical advantage Bolivia have when playing on the Andean Plateau and meant the natural challenges and variation in climate and environment international football offers, remain a feature of the game.

Though Bolivia might not get a result in their game in Argentina against the World Champions this week, they will hope that once they are back on home soil, or maybe more accurately, home rock, in future international breaks, they can climb high enough to qualify for the World Cup for just the fourth time in their history.