If Gareth Southgate’s emissaries learned one thing from an attritional scrap it is that even in a best-case scenario England will come away from Nizhny Novgorod sporting bruises after their group game with Panama at the World Cup finals.

England’s opponents on 24 June, perhaps sensing that Denmark were reluctant to operate at anything above half-speed, dragged their hosts into a sapping physical contest and left their mark in more ways than one.

They were beaten by a second-half piece of ingenuity from Pione Sisto but what happened four minutes before that may better inform rivals’ preparations for this summer. Blas Pérez’s high, dangerous challenge on Kasper Schmeichel gave the referee, Neil Doyle, one of the easier red-card decisions he will make and although the striker’s intentions did not appear malicious, such an incident had seemed only a matter of time away.

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Some of Panama’s challenges in the previous 66 minutes stretched the line of legitimacy to its limit and had already raised eyebrows given that this was a friendly, and it was no surprise to see Doyle book Aníbal Godoy in the first half. It would be a disservice to say they offered nothing else, but the take-home message will be that failure to handle Panama’s approach will risk injury to both body and scoreline.

“You play a friendly, especially between two teams that will play in the World Cup, and you take it a little bit more easy – but I think that’s their style and the referee has to decide about that,” said Age Hareide, the Denmark manager, with a half-smile and a full measure of diplomacy.

He said his players came away unscathed although they would not have enjoyed seeing the 37-year-old Pérez, racing against Schmeichel to meet a ball that looped up towards the edge of the area, challenge with studs first and narrowly miss the goalkeeper’s face. A blow to the midriff was all the Leicester man received and the pain soon eased when Sisto, Denmark’s most lively attacker, showed nimble footwork to jink inside from the left and curl the ball past Jaime Penedo.

It gave Denmark a good news story from what, for them, was otherwise a forgettable night in a half-closed and barely interested stadium. Panama came away feeling emboldened, though, and firmer in their conviction that they can produce something novel in three months’ time.

“When the match started we tried to push in the opponent’s half,” their coach, Hernán Darío Gómez, said and that aggression found some positive outlets. Gómez, a World Cup veteran with Colombia and Ecuador, tried a 3-4-3 formation for the first time and was entitled to feel that it worked.

His wing-backs, Michael Murillo and Eric Davis, began on the front foot and Denmark were also discomfited at times by the quick feet of Édgar Yoel Bárcenas. A poor early challenge by the powerfully built Murillo on Sisto set the tone for their attitude off the ball, though. They were content to foul rotationally and were often quick to anger when caught, discord often simmering just beneath the surface of an encounter played on a rutted pitch that offered little hope of progressive football.

Bárcenas was behind Panama’s most incisive moves but Southgate may be more concerned when he hears of a more rudimentary tactic. The centre-back Adolfo Machado twice hurled throw-ins as far as the penalty spot before half-time; for anyone still haunted by Icelandic ghosts it may not have been the most welcome of visions.

Yet Panama, an experienced side used to the hard knocks of a notoriously intimidating Concacaf zone, will offer a challenge of their own making. “We are not going to be as easy an opponent as everybody thinks,” Gómez concluded. He may have also played on a few English fears.