Peru’s players take part in a training session at the Mordovia Arena in Saransk on June 15, 2018, a day ahead of their Russia World Cup 2018 Group C football match against Denmark. / AFP PHOTO / Filippo MONTEFORTE
Paolo Guerrero was left out of Peru’s starting line-up against Denmark in their opening World Cup match on Saturday as Jefferson Farfan was preferred as striker.
Having had his 14-month ban for taking cocaine overturned just weeks before the World Cup kicked off, Guerrero, 34, started on the bench in Saransk amid questions about his fitness.
Farfan, 33, keeps his place after his goals against Paraguay and in a playoff against New Zealand carried Peru to their first World Cup finals for 36 years.
The main Danish threat is expected to be Tottenham midfielder Christian Eriksen, who netted 11 goals in qualifying, a record bettered only by Cristiano Ronaldo and Robert Lewandowski.
The 26-year-old hit a hat-trick in the 5-1 play-off demolition of Ireland in Dublin last November.
He then scored and created another in a 2-0 friendly win over Mexico in a pre-World Cup warm-up.
With France now the Group C front-runners after earlier beating Australia 2-1 in Kazan, neither team will want to drop points at the first hurdle.
