Srecko Katanec, the coach of the national football team of Macedonia, announced the squad of 18 players for the friendly match against Nigeria that will be played in Skopje on 22nd August. Georgievski, Grncarov and Baldovaliev are the new names in the Macedonian team.
MACEDONIAN TEAM:
Goalkeepers: Petar Milosevski (Neon Enozis, Cyprus), Jorde Georgievski (FK Vardar)
Defenders: Goce Sedloski (SV Mattersburg, Austria), Igor Mitreski (FC Energie Cottbus, Germany), Nikolce Noveski (1. FSV Mainz 05, Germany), Aleksandar Vasoski (Eintracht Frankfurt, Germany), Bobi Grncarov (FC Gent, Belgium).
Midfielders: Velice Shumolikoski (Bursaspor, Turkey), Vlatko Grozdanovski (AC Omonia, Cyprus), Darko Tasevski (FC Metalurh Zaporizhya, Ukraine), Aleksandar Mitrevski (1. FC Köln, Germany), Artim Polozani (TuS Koblenz, Germany), Goran Popov (FC Egaleo, Greece), Vlade Lazarevski (Groclin Grodzisk Wielkopolski, Poland).
Forwards: Zoran Baldovaliev (Lokomotiv Sofia, Bulgaria), Aco Stojkov (FK Debrecin, Hungary), Goran Maznov (KSC Lokeren OV, Belgium) Goran Pandev (Lazio, Italy).
After the naming of the squad, Srecko Katanec said: "It's good that we scheduled a friendly against a strong team that will give us a chance to test our skills and form before the qualifying match against Russia. We have some new names, like the goalkeeper Georgievski and the striker Baldovaliev and we should test their form on a friendly matches like this one. Stevica Ristic is not in the squad because I don't want to tire him with the traveling from S.Korea. Vasoski was injured but I hope that he can play on this match.
Macedonia hasn't won on home ground for long time but that doesn't bother me because if we wanted to stop that bad run we could have scheduled a friendly with easier opponent. For me it's important that the Nigerians are close with the quality with the Russians. I like to play against strong teams and that's why I would like our team to play good, everybody to be fit and with good atmosphere to travel to Moscow", said Katanec.
