Vardar hosts Shkendija in the first leg of the quarter-final cup encounter scheduled for today.

photo by FK Vardar: Chedomir Janevski

Due to the Europa League group stage participation last autumn, many of Vardar’s domestic games were postponed. They managed to play almost all of them later, but the two quarter-final cup matches against Shkendija were left for the second half-season.

Vardar and Shkendija already faced each other a week ago, last Wednesday, in the Round 19 of the first league, which was first after the winter break. The game played in Tetovo ended in an 1:1 draw.

Manager Chedomir Janevski expressed his thoughts for the official club web site for today’s cup encounter:

“We will face Shkendija twice in the Cup with the first game on our ground. We will have to match them again, just like in the opening round of the second half-season. We are aware that these home and away games are hard for playing because we are facing a very good team. We will play to win this first game. This one will be totally different than the one against Pobeda played on Sunday. I will say this again, Vardar is a club that needs to win in every competition, so that is the case with the Macedonian Cup as well. We want to go all the way and win it. We go step by step, we have two hard games, but we will give everything to advance to the next stage.”

The game will be played today at 14.00 CET at the National Arena Philip II of Macedon in Skopje. Referee will be Dimitar Mechkarovski.