As expected, national team coach Igor Angelovski called up some of the U21 heroes for the upcoming World Cup qualifier against Spain.

A very hard task is in front of our senior national team as Macedonia visits Spain in the Round 4 of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifications. Since the 2017 U21 EURO qualifications are over for us, Igor Angelovski could finaly summon some of these young players to help the seniors who recorded only defeats so far.

In agreement with U21 national team coach Blagoja Milevski, the friendly against EURO hosts Poland (arranged for the 10th) was cancelled so the players could be promoted to the senior team where they are desperately needed. Finaly Macedonia will have the needed depth in defence and midfield, the most problematic parts seen so far. Also, U21 keeper Aleksovski has been added as both Zahov and Bogatinov haven’t convinced of their capabilities. His colleague from Vardar, Filip Gachevski has also been recalled due to his good form in the Macedonian league.

Angelovski will now have troubles choosing the starting keeper as back in the team is Stole Dimitrievski who was dropped from the October qualifiers due to not playing for his Spanish club, but he has been Gimnástic’s first choice keeper in the last 4 games.

In the 21-player-squad there are only two wing backs in Ristovski and Zhuta and that is the only flaw of the coach. He must have called up back up players for those position as a possible injury during the game may complicate things.

Angelovski added that next week he may summon additional player/s. There wasn’t any info given about the possible friendly game on the 15th.

The complete squad:

Stole Dimitrevski – Gimnástic
Filip Gachevski – Vardar
Igor Aleksovski – Vardar (U21)

Vanche Shikov – Neftçi
Leonard Zhuta – Rijeka
Kire Ristevski – Vasas
Stefan Ristovski – Rijeka
Daniel Mojsov – AEK
Gjoko Zajkov – Charleroa (U21)
Darko Velkovski – Vardar (U21)

Stefan Spirovski – Vardar
Ezgjan Alioski – Lugano
Ferhan Hasani – Shkendija
Boban Nikolov – Vardar (U21)
Enis Bardi – Újpest (U21)
David Babunski – Crvena zvezda (U21)
Nikola Gjorgjev – Grasshoppers (U21)

Goran Pandev – Genoa
Ilija Nestorovski – Palermo
Besart Ibraimi – Shkendija
Kire Markoski – Rabotnichki (U21)

The qualifier between Spain and Macedonia will be played on November 12 at the Nuevo Los Cármenes stadium in the Mediterranean port-city of Granada in South Spain. The stadium with a capacity of 23.000 has already been sold-out.