International friendly: Mexico 1 Denmark 1

31 January 2013 07:08

Mexico were unable to put away a youthful Denmark outfit as the two sides played out a 1-1 draw in their friendly in Arizona on Wednesday.

After a scoreless opening 45 minutes, a pair of second-half penalties saw the two nations share the spoils.

Mexico had the rub of the green in the first half and there was little evidence of the verve the Danes displayed in their 4-0 win over Canada on Saturday.

The relatively strong Mexico side, led by captain Maza Rodriguez, kept the Danes to a solitary shot in the first half.

The Mexicans looked a little better, but couldn't find the back of the net either. The best chance of the first half came just on 30 minutes, when Denmark defender Kris Stadsgaard nearly deflected Angel Reyna's cross into his own net, only to be bailed out by the post.

Mexico finally found the game's first goal in the 68th minute. Javier Aquino went down on the edge of the area under heavy pressure from Mikkel Kirkeskov, and Marco Fabian converted the spot kick to give his side the advantage.

Denmark levelled, however, with just six minutes of normal time remaining. Andreas Cornelius - Denmark's teenage hat-trick hero against Canada - went down under pressure from Jorge Torres Nilo, and stepped up to coolly slot his spot kick into the low corner, wrong-footing debutant goalkeeper Cirilo Saucedo.

Despite the drawn result, one group of Mexican fans will have reason to be satisfied, as Saucedo and Fernando Arce became the first players from Liga MX champion Club Tijuana to represent the Mexican national team.