Hey all, I'm doing some research into the current Bolivian national team and it would be greatly appreciated if you could help. All I am looking for is who you believe are the best players in the national team and who the upcoming young talent are - those that look promising and might break into the first team in the future. And any general opinions of recent games would be great as well Cheers guys
Apologies I should have explained. I write articles for a soccer (or football as I call it) website, I write about Manchester City but I also have the freedom to write about other things and something I've become very interested in is South American football. Ive watched it as much as possible over the past few years, mainly the World Cup qualifiers and the Copa America last summer. Its mainly just from my own interest and to develop my own understanding of football in South America and I thought I would write a little bit about each country, who their best players are, any young promising players coming through and the general opinions of the team. I watched the Bolivia game yesterday and although you were bottom of the group I was impressed with how they played and showed, if only from that one performance, that the potential is there. I dont know a great deal about the Bolivian national team so I thought it would be a great place to start. I'm going to tie in each country with the South American World Cup qualifiers that are taking place. Ive heard of a few Bolivian players, I know Martins seems a fantastic prospect and he moved to Shakhtar Donetsk from Cruziero but other than him Ive not really heard of any of the players which is why Im asking here. You dont have to say anything if you dont want to, after all it is just partly for my own research and that but any opinions on players, recent results and things like that would be greatly appreciated and I would credit you for it. Many thanks, Alan
Alan, A general comment about the Bolivian National Team: There are and have been a number of very good players come through the ranks in the last 20 years, particularly after a small but well organized football school was created in Santa Cruz. Tahuichi Football Academy (www.tahuichi.com) has been responsible for training not only bolivian players, but kids from other parts of the world, some of whom are in prominent teams abroad. Our biggest issue is the lack of serioussness and professionalism on the part of those who command professional football in our country. We are the only FIFA-sanctioned nation with three separate entities: The Bolivian Football Federation (responsible for the national team), the Bolivian Professional League (which administers all and any professional Club-level official tournaments), and the Professional Football Association (a kind of union for professional team in all three divisions). All of them act in their own interests and are in constant clash with one another. Additionally, we have never really had a top level coach or manager either; and by this I mean someone recognized in the international arena. Even Javier Azkargorta, the coach who took our team to the world cup in 1994, was an unknown and happened to take over a truly special team of talented players, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Bolivia_Squad_1994_World_Cup) who had been playing for Tahuichi and the national team since the were 8 or 10 years old and had won many international competitions at the youth level. Lastly, players come up through the few lower divisions we have, but seldom make it very far due to our reputation as poorly organized league and an overly relaxed player lifestyle mentallity. As far as current stars in our team, Marcelo Martins, Ronald Raldes, Juan Carlos Arce, Joselito Vaca, Ronald "Nacho" Garcia, Ronald Gutierrez (Ronald is a popular name in some parts of Bolivia), Luis Gatty Ribeiro and Joaquin Botero -the last two should always be sold as a set in my opinion, as they really work well together- are footballers who are playing or have played in highly competitive leagues in Europe, South America and Mexico...typically a good indicator as to who our best and brightest is. There are also a number of up and coming young players, some who are already sold or on loan and playing for many reserve teams in Europe, Argentina, Brasil and Mexico. I am sure someone in this forum will provide you more detail information about them. Thanks for your interest in our team. Is is not often that someone outside Bolivia cares for Bolivian football. I will add other thoughts to this post as I get a chance. Thanks, mate.
Best players on the national team IMO Marcelo Moreno Martins (Cruzeiro/Shakhtar) - our best forward, great air game, and our only threat in set pieces, I believe yesterday was only his third start. You can tell the guys around him are just getting used to his game, if we can only have someone to cross him the ball more often we'd be sitting pretty. Can only improve, turned 21 yesterday, celebrated with a gol. Ronald "Nacho" Garcia (Aris - Greece) - more of a defensive midfielder, played well for Aris in his time there and in the UEFA cup, rumored to be heading to Bundesliga this summer, Has had some injurty issues but hands down one of if not our top guy in the middle. Ronald Raldes (R. Central - Argentina) - Central defender, he's been our rock on defense, we have a shaky defense with the other 3 defenders being switched out almost every game, he's our one constant. Finished his contract at Central rumored to be heading to europe or bigger club in Argentina. River Plate was after him but Central didn't want to part with him. Not the fastest but has great positioning and good vision. Juan Carlos Arce (Al Arabi-Qatar) - Striker 23 year old, good pace, nice technique, played in Corinthians of Brasil last season and many of us think it was a mistake to head to Qatar to play, and should have taken the lesser money to stay in Brasil or somewhere else. Didn't show too well on the Chile game, tried to do too much, but IMO the team was dead he really had no choice and was trying to make something happen. Ronald Gutierrez (Bursaspor-Turkey) - 28 year old midfielder, was the best player in the local Bolivian league last year, first year in Turkey, we're very weak in the middle so we need him to show up for the national team, showed well yesterday. Jhasmani Campos (Oriente Petrolero - Bolivia) - 20 year old midfielder, plays on the wings for the national team, has been one of the more consistent players and keeps improving every game, rumored that european clubs are following his progress, wont be long before he's in europe IMO. Probably the best player on the field in the Chile game, taken out early did not play yesterday, was recoveing from injury and got knocked around in the Chile game pretty good. Possible future senior team players Luis Ali - 13yr old forward, plays for club Lleida in the Barcelona regional. Was called into play in the Catalan sub14, that team won the Spanish championship and he was either the top gol scorer or one of the top ones, can't remember. Rumored to be pursued by Villarreal, Real Espanyol, Real Madrid, Barcelona etc Recently trained in England with Chelsea and Tottenham. Reports are saying he'll sign with Tottenham and play in Spain until he turns 18, then go to England. Carlos Tordoya - 20yrd old defender, plays in the local league, great pace, good technique, still needs work on his positioning. Good prospect has played a few games for the national team. We're weak in our back line we're hoping he'll pan out. Not called up recently, recoveing from auto accident, we'll see how he recuperates. Gustavo Pineda - 20yr old forward, was playing in Cadiz in Spain, but was sent to Xerez? (2nd division) Can't seem to get off the bench due initially to his non eu citizenship problems. We hope he gets the hell out of there and gets playing time. Was our top young forward coming up a few years ago. He's now fallen back in the depth chart but he's still young. Eduardo Fierro - 20yr old forward, plays in Bolivian league, was headed to the Eredivise last year when deal fell through at the last minute. Good prospect, looked good in last years Pan American games, but we're pretty deep at forward he'll have to make some noise in the local tournament. Carlos Sabja - 18 yr old forward, on loan in Befica, and has had interest from Ajax. Can't see him cracking either of those first teams, but we'll see he's only been there a short while. Many other younger players on loan or youth teams in various teams throughout, these are some that come to mind although I'm sure I'm missing many. Our national team has been horrible so far, obvious by the standings, most of us think our head coach is in over his head. His constant tinkering with squads, sketchy in game adjustments, and frankly a shallow talent pool to begin with has us in this position. From yesterday team 6 were new starters from the previous Chile game where we were horrible. Many of us don't think we have the coach or players/infrastructure to qualify but we think/hope we can at least be respectable and get some nice wins like yesterday. Marco nailed it with his comments regarding the professionalism of the local league and it's 3 headed monster that are constantly clashing. Hope that helps
Thanks a lot, your contributions are fantastic and I will credit you in the article. I'll post it up here when its finished to gain your approval and to check that what Ive written is accurate. I'll follow Bolivia closely in the future so all the best in your pursuit of qualification, I hope the win over Paraguay will kick-start your campaign.
Bolivia - El Salvador August 13 in Washington , USA ? http://everardoherrera.com/2007b.php?deta=2007_leer_titulares.php?not=3789&id=3789
Its possible. Theyve played before in the past in DC. Its a great game because the Washington DC area is full of bolivians and salvadorians = big bucks for the person putting it all together.
OR platini isnt going to do much on trying to find backups to play..... why havent we played portugal yet? Remember the talks of playing turkey??? These are the teams we need to play! Not friggin' Central American/Concacaf Squads!
Not even friggin' Central American/Concacaf Squads want to play us....much less stellar teams like Turkey and Portugal!!! Think about it....a team like EL SALVADOR thought we weren't good enough....and they chose TRINIDAD&TOBAGO! That means that we are worth......how much?
Fuego, we already played Portugal in Portugal, and it was ugly, I think they worked us 6-0 with their reserves. It's not that we need to play powerful teams, we just need to play anybody at this point. drey, It's not that Salvador think they're too good, It's all negotiations and politics. We owe them a game, because they already came to Bolivia to get sacrified (5-0). I'm sure they wanted a game in their house and FBF wanted it in US, Bolivia or neutral. We also owe a game to Paraguay, and the #1 reason we don't have enough friendlies is because we don't have the $$ to pay good teams, and no one wants to play in La Paz which is where Platini wants the friendlies. If teams dont' want to play us in La Paz, fine, let's play in Sucre, Cocha o Santa Cruz. If Portugal, Germany, Turkey or whoever don't want to play us, fine, let's play whoever we can. The point is these guys need to play together ASAP, hell let's play against Fuegos borracho all-stars, who cares let's just play, Fuego make the call and make it happen
I nominate Nilo for Presidente of the FBF. Fuego, Vice-Presidente. Treasuer? That's a tough one, we Bolivians don't trust each other or anyone else.
Any chance we can convince Evo to leave the presidence of the country for the presidency of FBF? A marchar con los chullus y abarcas
I read something about a friendly against Honduras in Washington, which would be better than El Salvador. http://www.la-razon.com/versiones/20080717_006336/nota_252_633854.htm
I haven't heard anything around town about this. I'll check into it and post back here for all the DC Bolivianos.
hahahaha I agree though, at this point beggers cant be choosers. We should get anyone to play us at this point, we just need games against any side to try out formations, players, etc.
Apparently Bolivia is playing against Guatemala August 6th in DC http://www.facetasdeportivastv.com/nota.php?id=578
Guatemala was scheduled to play Jamaica that day , but maybe cancelled. Bolivia - Honduras on August 16 in Washington. http://www.diez.hn/index.php/Ediciones/2008/07/19/Noticias/Descartado-el-amistoso-contra-Bolivia
The article said that the friendly against Honduras got cancelled, because it did not favor the Hondurans. Looks like we're stuck playing against Guatemala and nobody else.