Bolivia cannot have traveled to the World Cup in Uruguay with any great hope of success.
Their introduction to the international stage had come in 1926. In the South American Championship that year they played four games and left winless with an aggregate of 2 goals for and 24 against.
The following year they played 3 South American Championship matches and conceded 19 goals whilst scoring 3.
So they arrived in Uruguay having never won an international game. But they had an eventful, if brief tournament.
Keen to pay tribute to their hosts they played their opening match wearing shirts each emblazoned with a single letter, spelling Viva Uruguay.
In this opening fixture against Yugoslavia Bolivia had four goals disallowed and were down to 10 men after 55 mins. Yugoslavia prevailed by four goals to nil. As you can see from the picture (which I'm guessing was taken after the match, with Gomez, the injured player accounting for the missing 'U'?) the Bolivians also sported some interesting headwear.
Their next opponents were Brazil, definitely a case of 'come on you whites' as both teams bizarrely wore identical shirts for much of the first half. Bolivia swapped their shirts but their fortunes were unchanged, Brazil running out four nil winners.The tournament was over for Bolivia, still without an international win to their name. For their coach, Ulises Saucedo, however, there was more action to come, as he refereed the match between Argentina and Mexico!
Thanks to JK
