The plan for the highest football match in the world was hatched in the offices of the Club Andino Boliviano and the High Altitude Pathology Institute (Ippa) in the world's highest capital city, La Paz.

Three doctors at Ippa, experts on the effects of altitude, were convinced that sporting activities could take place at very high altitudes. And with a flat, snow covered crater at its summit, Sajama, an extinct Andean volcano lying close to the Bolivia-Chile border, offered the perfect environment to test the theory.

Two of the players who were to take part did not even make it to the pitch - struck down by altitude sickness as they climbed their way to the 6542m (21,424 ft) summit.

But armed with four orange footballs and two goalposts painted black to aid visibility in the snow, the 15 remaining players set about laying out the pitch for their historic fixture.

The two teams, one made up of villagers from Sajama, and the other from members of the La Paz Mountain and Trekking Guides Association, played for 20 minutes each way on the 35m by 50m pitch.

Ippa, who had funded the record breaking expedition, carried out tests on all the players following the match and none of them showed problems in reaction to their high altitude exertions.