The Air Up There: Playing at Bolivia's Dizzying Altitudes

Tucked tightly among the highrises of the Miraflores district of La Paz, Bolivia, the Hernando Siles stadium is one of those great South American dust bowls drenched in character. Yet few stadiums anywhere can match its home-field advantage: Nestled in the Andes at a lung-tightening 11,932 feet, it brings football to the very roof of the Americas.

Last month, it was where Brazilian club Internacional arrived hours before kicking off this season's Copa Libertadores, the South American championship. Just 36 minutes into the game, Internacional's star midfielder, Anderson--a signing from Manchester United--was substituted so that he could stumble to the bench and put on an oxygen mask. Slowly, at least a half dozen of his teammates drained as well, and eventually Internacional lost, 3-1, to its Bolivian host, the Strongest.

Watching that night in Buenos Aires and Belo Horizonte, a shudder must have run through Argentine champions River Plate and Brazilian titlists Cruzeiro. They were next.

In many ways, altitude has long been the most worrisome opponent for teams traveling to Bolivia to play, enough of a factor that in 2007 FIFA briefly banned most matches there. The ban was later lifted, but dizzying heights still force visitors to adjust travel schedules, training regimens and tactics.

The altitude is also affecting this year's Copa Libertadores competition, in which the three Bolivian entries--the Strongest, San José and Universitario,were unbeaten in their home matches heading into this week's round.

“This is one of the hardest matches we're going to have,“ River Plate's coach, Marcelo Gallardo, said ahead of his club's trip to Oruro in February. Little wonder, as the city looks down on La Paz from its perch at 12,168 feet.

In anticipation of the conditions, the River Plate medical staff resort ed to doses of Viagra, which they contended would “stimulate circulation of oxygen.“

It was not enough; River faded in the last 10 minutes, surrendering two goals. “For those c o m i n g h e r e , the biggest effect will be the head,“ Jaime Sanchez of the University of San Andrés in La Paz said of visi tors. “There'll be headaches, spin ning, confusion.“

“Mostly the problem is dehydration, because the body needs more oxygen to the cells,“ the Cruzeiro physician Eduardo Pimenta said.

"You struggle to breathe. Muscles burn. There's fire in your lungs."

The Hernando Siles, which also serves as Bolivia's national sta dium, is where, in 1993, Brazil lost a World Cup qualifier for the first time, and where, in 2009, Argentina endured a 6 -1 thrashing that matched its worst defeat.

In the 2007 Copa Libertadores, the Rio de Janeiro club Flamengo left its beachside neighborhood and headed higher than any of those teams,nearly five kilometers up, to face Real Potosí. Flamengo called the conditions "un sporting and inhumane," and as a result FIFA tried to prohibit matches above 8,200 feet.

The rule effectively banned games in most major cities in Bolivia, but also in the capitals of Colombia (Bogotá) and Ecuador (Quito), and prompted howls of protest from the affected nations.