China took it easy in this week's 2-0 friendly defeat to Portugal for fear of injuring Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo and ruling him out of the World Cup, according to coach Gao Hongbo.
A tired and weakened Germany got their Asian Tour got off to a lacklustre start when they were held to a 1-1 draw by a young China team in an international friendly on Friday. Showing the clear effects of a gruelling season, Germany needed an equaliser from Lukas Podolski to cancel out Hao Junmin's opener and avoid an embarrassing defeat to the Chinese, who are 95 places below them in the FIFA rankings.
Marcelo Lippi's first game as China coach ended in a 0-0 draw with Qatar in a World Cup qualifier in Kunming on Tuesday, seriously damaging both team's hopes of reaching the finals in Russia.
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