Denmark rode their luck against Peru, who missed a penalty, as Yussuf Poulsen scored the only goal in a 1-0 victory.
Today's games
World Cup group standings
Christian Cueva missed a golden chance to give Peru a deserved lead just before half time as he blazed his wild penalty miles over the bar.
Peru continued to look the more likely to score with more pace and purpose than Denmark, but they were just lacking a touch of composure in and around the box.
Denmark's goal came on the break, with Christian Eriksen playing in Poulsen down the left edge of the box and, although his first touch was poor, his left-footed finish was perfect.
Peru continued to press but found Kasper Schmeichel in great form as they were just unable to find the finishing touches to their fine build-up play.
Denmark are 11/4 second favourites behind France to win Group C, and are odds-on to qualify as they move on to face Australia on Thursday.
Peru have it all to do despite their promising performance as they take on France in their next fixture.
Opta Stats
- Denmark have won four of their five opening games at World Cup tournaments, losing only against the Netherlands in 2010.
- Peru are winless in their last seven World Cup games (W0 D2 L5).
- Denmark have won three of their four World Cup matches against South American opponents, with the only exception being a 2-3 defeat against Brazil in the 1998 quarter-final.
- This was just Denmark’s second clean sheet across their last 12 World Cup matches (also 2-0 vs France in 2002).
- Peru had 17 shots in this game, the most by a team without scoring so far in the 2018 World Cup.
- Peru’s missed penalty in the first half means there have already been more unsuccessful penalty attempts in this World Cup (2/5) than there were in the whole 2014 tournament (1/13, excluding shootouts).
- Goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel has kept a clean sheet in his last five appearances for Denmark. He’s gone 534 minutes without conceding at international level, with his last goal shipped coming via the Republic of Ireland’s Shane Duffy in November.
- Denmark keeper Kasper Schmeichel has already kept as many World Cup clean sheets in one game as his father Peter did in five appearances in the competition (1).
- Christian Eriksen has scored (12) or assisted (5) 17 goals in his last 14 appearances for Denmark.
- Yussuf Poulsen has now scored in his last two appearances for Denmark, with both of those goals being assisted by Christian Eriksen.
Related World Cup links
Fast Results
Scores
