Peru national football team

This is the sighted version that was marked on June 25, 2021. There is 1 pending change that needs to be sighted.

The Peruvian national football team is the selection team of the Peruvian Football Federation (FPF) and represents Peru at international level. The national team has participated in five World Cups to date (1930, 1970, 1978, 1982, 2018). While they failed in the preliminary round in 1930, 1982 and 2018, they reached the quarterfinals and the intermediate round in 1970 and 1978 respectively. In 1927, Peru participated in the Copa América for the first time, which the country hosted. The first match at the Copa was also the first international match. Peru won the Copa América in 1939 and 1975. In recent years, most of the time it was over in the quarter-finals, and only in 2011 did it reach the semi-finals again, where it lost 2-0 to Uruguay. In the third-place match that followed, Peru beat Venezuela 4-1, with Paolo Guerrero scoring three goals. Peru repeated this success at the 2015 Copa América after a 2-0 win over the same opponents. In 2019, the team reached the final of the Copa America for the first time in over forty years, finishing as a losing team.

Peruvian footballers had their greatest period in the 1970s. The star of that team was goalscorer Teófilo Cubillas, who scored ten times in 13 World Cup matches. Peru's best ranking in the FIFA World Ranking, which has been maintained since 1993, came in October 2017 after qualifying for the 2018 World Cup, which marked Peru's first appearance in the top ten.

History

Peru participated in five World Cups. Peru delivered a special match at the World Cup in Argentina on 21 June 1978. Peru had entered a second final group with three other teams. After the first two games, Peru had no chance of reaching the third-place game or the final. The Argentines and Brazilians had played to a draw. Brazil had already played their games and Argentina not only had to beat Peru to reach the final, but they had to win big. Peru lost 6-0, and suspicions lingered for a long time that the Argentine military junta had bought the high victory with grain deliveries to the Peruvian state. In the book "We Were World Champions" by Ricardo Gotta, Peruvian national players tell of calls from their head of state, of visits by dictator Jorge Videla and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to their dressing room. To defender José Velazquez, it seemed "pretty strange, there was pressure." Goalkeeper Ramón Quiroga, an Argentine native, didn't have a good day in the 6-0 loss and later said he was "sure some took something. We saw strange things". Years later, Peruvian senator Genaro Ledesma admitted Argentina had bought the game. In March 2007, former 52-time international Julio César Uribe took over as coach from Francisco Maturana. However, Uribe resigned again in July 2007. His successor was José del Solar. From July 2010 to February 2014, Uruguayan Sergio Markarián was the national coach of Peru. He was followed by his assistant Pablo Bengoechea in March 2014. After Ricardo Gareca took over the national team in 2015, it managed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, its first World Cup appearance in 36 years. At the 2019 Copa America, Peru reached a final of an international tournament for the first time in 44 years. There, they lost 3-1 to Brazil.

International competitions

Peru at the Olympic Games

1900 – 1928	not attended
1936 in Berlin	Quarterfinals

After 1936, the senior national team did not participate in the Olympic Games. The Olympic team only participated in 1960, where they were eliminated in the preliminary round.

Peru at World Championships

→ Main article: Peru national football team/World Cups

Year	Host country	Participation until ...	Last opponent(s)	Result	Trainer	Remarks and special features
1930	Uruguay	Preliminary round	Romania and Uruguay	10.	Francisco Bru
1934	Italy	retracted				Peru did not appear for the qualifying matches against Brazil.
1938	France	not attended
1950	Brazil	retracted				Peru did not show up for the qualifiers, so Uruguay and Paraguay qualified without a fight.
1954	Switzerland	not permitted				Application submitted too late
1958	Sweden	unqualified				Failed to qualify from Brazil
1962	Chile	unqualified				Failed to qualify against Colombia
1966	England	unqualified				Failed to qualify against Uruguay
1970	Mexico	Quarterfinals	Brazil	7.	Valdir Pereira	In the preliminary round, the only match to date was against Germany.
1974	Germany	unqualified				Chile defeated in qualifying after deciding match
1978	Argentina	Intermediate round	Brazil, Poland, Argentina	8.	Marcos Calderon	After the 0:6 against Argentina, accusations of bribery were made by Brazil.
1982	Spain	Preliminary round	Cameroon, Italy, Poland	20.	Tim	Peru's 1:5 against Poland was the only match in this group that did not end in a draw. As a result, Peru was eliminated as the last team in the group.
1986	Mexico	unqualified				Failed to qualify from Argentina
1990	Italy	unqualified				Failed to qualify against Uruguay
1994	USA	unqualified				Failed to qualify against Argentina and Colombia
1998	France	unqualified				In the South American qualifiers, which were held for the first time in a league system between all the South American contenders - except Brazil, who qualified directly as world champions - Peru only finished 5th. The top four qualified.
2002	South Korea/Japan	unqualified				In the South American qualifiers, which were played with all South American teams in the league system, Peru only finished 8th. The top four qualified directly, with Uruguay fifth via the play-offs against Australia.
2006	Germany	unqualified				In the South American qualifiers, which were played in a league system between all South American teams, Peru only finished 9th. The top four qualified directly, while Uruguay, in fifth place, were eliminated by Australia in the play-offs.
2010	South Africa	unqualified				In the South American qualifiers, which were played in a league system between all South American teams, Peru only finished 10th and last. The top four qualified directly, with Uruguay fifth via the play-offs against Costa Rica.
2014	Brazil	unqualified				Peru missed out on qualification with a 3-2 loss to Venezuela on the third last matchday.
2018	Russia	Preliminary round	Denmark, France, Australia		Ricardo Gareca	Eliminated as group third after two losses to Denmark and France and a win against Australia.
2022	Qatar
2026	Canada/Mexico/USA