Right after the second friendly against Saudi Arabia, Babunski expressed his views on the qualifications tournament for the U21 national team.

‘Our analysis have shown several reasons why we did not get good results in the last qualifying matches’ – Babunski started before adding ‘Some players joined us late (Hasani, Ristovski, Spirovski, Brdarovski, Urdinov), couple of players had yellow cards suspensions and it all culminated in not having the proper preparations for the first important match against Faroe Islands’ – Babunski finished, showing some frustration at having several key U21 players called up for the friendly matches of the senior national team in late May.

‘We were always missing one or two players and we managed to find quality alternatives, but this time five or six regulars were missing and we weren’t able to replace them adequately.  Nevertheless, we are happy to have taken a look at some players who will wear the national team jersey in the future.  There are two games remaining in the qualifications and if we win both games, we will keep the hopes of finishing in second place alive and thus participate in the playoff.  However, it is also clear that we will rely on results of the other teams in our group.  During the friendly matches against Saudi Arabia, we have gained confidence in the potential and quality of Dimitrievski, Hristov, Drobarov, Cikarski, Simonovski, Micevski, Selmani and the others who received less playing time.  In the future, we hope that we will have more understanding about the needs of the U21 team from all football structures in order to collect the desired results, but understand that the senior national team has the utmost priority.’ – Babunski noted in an interview for FFM’s official website.