Colombia make light work of China
| CHINA | COLOMBIA |
| 0 | 4 |
| (Felipe Pardo 5, Carlos Bacca 62, Miguel Borja 67, 90+1) |
A Colombia side missing James Rodriguez punished China 4-0 away in a friendly yesterday as coach Jose Pekerman made wholesale changes from the team defeated in acrimony in South Korea.
Edwin Cardona, who was accused of making a racist gesture in last Friday's 2-1 loss at South Korea, was again named among the substitutes for Colombia, who unlike China have qualified for next year's World Cup.
One of the changes by Pekerman saw Felipe Pardo start and the Olympiakos winger scored after five minutes, drilling past Yan Junling after finding himself unmarked in the box, with Miguel Borja hitting a second-half brace and Carlos Bacca getting the other.
NO RODRIGUEZ
Attacking midfielder Rodriguez, 26, was absent after he chose to head back to Bayern Munich - where he is on loan from Real Madrid - after the defeat by South Korea.
In his absence, Colombia were only a sporadic threat up front in the first period.
But China, under Italian World Cup-winning coach Marcello Lippi, are struggling for goals and they fired a successive blank having gone down 2-0 to Serbia at home on Friday.
Their best chance arrived in the 56th minute when winger Wu Lei took advantage of lax Colombian defending to nip in and bear down on goal, but goalkeeper Jose Cuadrado denied him.
Colombia improved after the break and they made it 2-0 on 62 minutes when Bacca, the Villarreal striker, bustled his way through the home defence and toe-poked the ball into the bottom corner.
Five minutes later, Colombia extended their lead when substitute Borja lashed in from just inside the box.
Giovanni Moreno then rattled the bar with a header, before Borja stroked the ball into an empty net in injury time. - AFP
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