Goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer saved an 89th-minute penalty to help an injury-depleted Australia side scrape a 0-0 draw against China in their Asian World Cup qualifier in Kunming yesterday.

The veteran Middlesbrough stopper went from villain to hero in the space of a minute, saving Shao Jiayi's spot kick after he brought down Chinese striker Qu Bo in the penalty area.

"To lose that match to a late penalty would have been a disaster for us because I thought we deserved to get something out of the game," Schwarzer said.

Australia went into the match, played in front of a near-capacity crowd in the southwest China city, minus Harry Kewell and a number of their key Europe-based players who withdrew late with injuries.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.