As participants at the 1926 South American Championship in Chile, Bolivia played their first match against the hosts on 12 October 1926, and even ended up scoring first against them, but wound up being defeated by the Chileans 7–1.

[9] Bolivia's greatest football achievement was the 1963 South American Championship title, which they hosted and won after placing first out of 7 countries, including being undefeated, with five wins and one draw.

Afterwards, the country only started to resurge at an international level with the creation of the Academia Tahuichi Aguilera in Santa Cruz de la Sierra in 1978, a football school that developed players such as Marco Etcheverry, Erwin Sánchez and Luis Cristaldo.

Under Spanish coach Xabier Azkargorta and featuring nine players from Tahuichi, Bolivia surprisingly became the first team to beat Brazil in the 1994 World Cup qualifiers while playing them in La Paz, with a 2–0 win, and qualified for the 1994 World Cup by finishing second in Group B behind the Brazilians themselves, which included record 7–0 and 7–1 wins over Venezuela during their qualification campaign.

In the second half, Lothar Matthäus took a 40-yard run and struck Marco "El Diablo" Etcheverry with a high elbow to his jaw.

Despite the decent performance the team displayed during the tournament, Lopez Habas left his post shortly before the 1997 Copa America, being replaced by Dušan Drašković.

[10] With their runner-up finish at the previous Copa America, Bolivia made their first and only FIFA Confederations Cup appearance in the 1999 edition, this time under new Argentine manager Héctor Veira.

[14] On 28 March 2023, Bolivia registered its first-ever away win against a World Cup team in the 21st century, a 2–1 over Saudi Arabia in Jeddah in a friendly.

[citation needed] Bolivia plays their home matches at Estadio Hernando Siles, which has an altitude of 3,637 metres (11,932 ft) above sea level, making it one of the highest football stadiums in the world.

[15] However, FIFA raised the altitude limit to 3,000 meters a month later after negative feedback against the ban, and included a special exception for La Paz, thus allowing the stadium to continue holding World Cup qualifying matches.

[17] In 2024 the Bolivian Football Federation decided that from then on the home games would be played in the Estadio Municipal de El Alto, that has an altitude of 4,150 metres (13,620 ft) above sea level.

In the 1930 FIFA World Cup, before the match with Yugoslavia, Bolivia painted one of the letters in "Viva Uruguay" in each of the eleven starters' jerseys to please the local crowd.

Bolivia again painted a message to the hosts in the 1945 South American Championship, with the players' jerseys reading "Viva Chile".

Win Draw Loss Fixture The following players were called up to the squad for the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualification matches against Ecuador and Paraguay on 14 and 19 November 2024, respectively.