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The Week that Was – Bolivian Blogs

Categories: Latin America, Bolivia, Sport



In spite of the worsening political crisis plaguing the country, life often rumbles along as usual in Bolivia. For many, Sunday afternoons are spent in stadiums, where they join thousands of fellow hinchas to cheer on their local professional fútbol team. On Sunday, December 3, the club from Cochabamba, Jorge Wilstermann [1] captured its fourth national title when they defeated Real Potosí 2-1 in front of a packed house in Cochabamba.

Bloggers from around the country and abroad celebrated this feat, such as Gustavo Siles of Almada de Noche [ES], who hails from Cochabamba. However, he found himself in Spain, but was fortunate to follow the game live over streaming radio on the internet [2]. To supplement the live feed, he also collected and posted a series of video clips [3] that were uploaded to YouTube.

The blogger Thorv provided a detailed game report and descriptions of the three goals scored [4]. Others were in the stands, such as an Austrian-Bolivian blogger, who blogs under the moniker Cheshire Cat at her blog And Now for Something Completely Different. She reported that she arrived at the stadium a full four hours before kickoff, as her cousins had called indicating that the stadium was already filling up [5], and included an hour waiting in line. Others like Eduardo Ávila at Barrio Flores uploaded some video taken from the stands [6].

Not to be forgotten was Wilstermann’s formidable opponent, Real Potosí, who turned in a consistent season, but came up short in the process, as they were looking for its first league title. The team, however, boasts an active blog maintained by one of its supporters called Real Potosí: Noticias del León imperial [ES]. The blog provided information regarding the caravan to the city of Cochabamba [7], where approximately 4,000 Real Potosí fans converged to cheer on their team. In spite of the loss, there was a sense of pride because the team accomplished classification to the Liberator’s Cup and South American Cup [8], which attracts teams from all across the continent. Even after the final whistle, the blog continues to be updated with health reports of the goalkeeper [9] that was injured during the final game.

Even though much of the festivities were taking place in Cochabamba, many Potosinos were attentive to the game taking place. Randal, who blogs at El Inca Kola and happened to be visiting that city at the time said and wrote about the atmosphere [10],

Today was a big soccer match between Real Potosí and Wilstermann from Cochabamba, and thus everyone was inside watching the broadcast live from Cochabamba all afternoon which left the city even more deserted than it probably generally would be on a Sunday. Real Potosí lost, but there were no riots and the scores of people emerging in purple soccer shirts after around 5:30pm seemed fairly stoic about the whole thing.