Manager Boshko Gjurovski announced today that Agim Ibraimi is suffering from pneumonia, leading to his withdrawal from the Macedonian national team.

Even though Agim Ibraimi managed to play 90 minutes against Chelsea in the Champions League last Wednesday, he did miss the weekend game for Maribor in league play.  The reason given was that he needed rest as he deals with pneumonia.  He has been advised to rest for 2 weeks by the Maribor doctors, so thus he won’t be able to feature in Saturday’s qualifier versus Slovakia.

No replacement will be named for Ibraimi since the current squad has enough attackers.  Macedonia will now have 19 players available for the important clash with Slovakia.  Just like the Ukraine match last month, which Ibraimi also missed, Aleksandar Trajkovski and Besart Abdurahimi will likely start on the wings.