CHRIS DUNLAVY LOOKS BACK AT WHEN FIFA BLUNDERED IN TO A SOUTH AMERICAN SQUABBLE
HIGH LEVEL CONTROVERSY
FEBRUARY, 2007. The players of Flamengo CF board a plane at Galeão International, leaving behind a heaving city broiling in a sticky Brazilian summer.
Their destination is the Estadio Mario Mercado, home of Bolivian side Real Potosi, Flamengo’s opponents in the Copa Libertadores. It is a hellish journey. Potosi, once the second-biggest city in the Americas thanks to a 16th century silver boom, has no commercial airport.
Instead, Flamengo fly to Sucre, Bolivia’s constitut...