WORLD CUP ETC - PREVIEW: Intercontinental Playoffs - Bolivia vs. Suriname - Monterrey

Paul Schmidt-Troschke & Jon Bonfiglio look ahead to the Monterrey semi-final in the Intercontinental Playoffs, between Bolivia and Suriname. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Hello and welcome to World Cup, etc., with me, Paul Schmitroschke, today from the city center of Guadalajara, and now I will preview the second semifinal of the Intercontinental Playoffs taking place here in Mexico between Bolivia and Suriname. Two qualification spots are still up for grabs in the mini tournament, and the winner of this match will square against Iraq in the final on the 31st of March. The venue, the Estadio BBVA Bancomer, was only inaugurated in 2015 and is located on the outskirts of Monterey and holds up to 53,000 people and is the home turf of the Club de Football Monterey. Now to the teams. Bolivia's men's national football team currently ranks as number 76 globally and has lost three, one only one out of their last five games, with one match played to a draw. It was founded in 1926 and was accepted as a FIFA member in the same year and could even qualify for their first World Cup participation just four years later. While the team nicknamed La Verde, meaning the Greens due to their gear colours, could qualify a total of three times for the event, once more in 1950 and 1994, they never managed to advance beyond the group stage and have only scored a single World Cup goal in 1994. And their last and only big trophy dates back to 1963, winning the Copa America as the host country while finishing runners-up in the tournament in 1997. Bolivia's court is led by Oscar Villegas, a former Bolivian forward, then club manager, and now national team coach. Most of the Bolivian players are representing national clubs, while players from Brazilian club Santos, Moroccan club Via Casablanca, Urugrais Montevideo Wanderers, and Canada's CF Montreal are also among the team. But in the end, no name stands out. Now over to the former Dutch colony of Suriname, which gained its independence in 1975 from the Netherlands. It was one of the founding members of CONCACAF, the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association football, in the year 1961 and has tried to qualify for the World Cup since 1962, yet unsuccessfully. Right now, the country occupies the 122nd place in the Global FIFA ranking and won two, lost one and ended two games in a draw out of the last five games. And one might wonder why this small nation with a bit more than 600,000 inhabitants and which never won any big trophy now finds itself in a historically good position to achieve their all-time dream, namely qualifying for the World Cup. The secret is the expansion of an old strategy targeting Dutch players with Surinamese heritage, therefore being eligible for holding dual citizenship to get them to play for Suriname, formerly known as Dutch Guyana. So the whole team is strongly connected to the Netherlands with eight players playing in Dutch clubs, as well as their head coach and lots of staff being Dutch. And again, I am very happy to be joined by my colleague and journalist John Monfilio. John, isn't Suriname located in South America? Why is it not part of the South American Football Federation Connyball?

SPEAKER_04 3:57

Thanks, Paul. Well, I guess for many people, the immediate thought is to ask how come two countries in South America, Suriname and Bolivia, are possibly playing each other in an intercontinental playoff. As surely, the clue being in the term intercontinental, well, that's impossible. The answer, however, lies in a quirk. Suriname, despite being located geographically in South America on its northern coastline, competes in the Conca Confederation, which covers North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. It's basically an anomaly along with Guyana and French Guyana. Bolivia, for its part, is a member of South America's Conmebol region. So in reality, they're in the same place. But in a footballing sense, they are intercontinental. Now, uh another relevant point or point of interest, I think, as regards uh Bolivia. Across the region, there has been some discussion in the last few years about teams maximizing home advantage. An example of this was Canada choosing cold climate venues, deliberately hosting crucial matches in sub-zero snow prone conditions. This generally works well because of its regional, because uh Canada's regional opponents in the Kanga CAF area are the likes of Caribbean countries or Central American nations, whose players have very little experience of extreme cold, especially when suddenly thrown in at the deep end for a one-off match. Well, why am I mentioning this? Because Bolivia, interestingly, does something similar, only that in its case, the Andean Nation uses altitude and thin air for home field advantage. Its National El Alto Stadium at an elevation of 4,150 metres, that's nearly 14,000 feet, is the world's highest professional stadium, which is currently hosting international matches. They moved home matches to the stadium for uh work up qualifying from 2024 onwards and uh actually achieved significant victories, including over Brazil. Neymar's perspective, amusingly, is that this is, and I quote, inhumane, unquote. VIFA previously had a ban on matches above 2,750 metres, later raised to 3,000 metres in 2007-2008 due to health concerns, but following a lot of pressure from Andean nations saying that they were being ruled against, uh disadvantaged, the rule was overturned. Monterey, though, host City Monterey, uh, which will be the uh the seat for this semifinal, is at 450 meters above sea level. So nowhere near the 4150 metres. No great advantage there.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Thanks, John. Yes, I can strongly recommend our listeners to search for footage of games being um held in in the stadium, with guest teams appearing to be in surprisingly bad shape and suffering a lot. So that's it from us for today. Don't forget to follow us and rate the show on our platforms to stay updated. That goes a long way for us. Thank you so much for listening and goodbye.