England gave Macedonian its heaviest defeat after losing 7:0 in an European qualifier on Monday night at Old Trafford in Manchester.

photo by UEFA: no comment

Blagoja Milevski returned on the bench after missing the Ukraine match due to a red card suspension. He opted for the same 11 from the Ukraine match, with the exception of CB Visar Musliu who was red carded in that game earned an one match suspension. The formation was slightly changed into 5-3-2. So, Stole Dimitrievski on goal, Darko Velkovski, Gjoko Zajkov and captain Stefan Ristovski in the defense, Ezgjan Alioski as right wing back, Stefan Ashkovski as left wing back, Enis Bardhi, Arijan Ademi and Elif Elmas in midfield with Aleksandar Trajkovski and Ilija Nestorovski up front. The attacking duo from the days in Palermo got another chance to bring back old memories.

On the bench appeared Egzon Bejtulai and Nikola Serafimov, both who were not at the Ukraine match. Vladica Brdarovski, who with a dismal performance did not use his chance against Ukraine, was dropped.

Right from the start England took the ball and never gave Macedonia chance to play. The English dominated, had the possession, and showed that in this moment they are simply too strong for this Macedonian squad. The Macedonians looked tired, or probably too nervous to play at Old Trafford.

The 3rd minute was underway when Ashkovski went up front from his right side, but failed to get past Harry Maguire in the box, making a foul instead. Macedonia did not use its opportunity for an early chance.

In the 16th minute captains Harry Kane and Ristovski collided in an aerial duel, resulting with both needing medical intervention. Ristovski’s head had to be bandaged as he was bleeding and Macedonia played with 10 men for around 5 minutes. His treatment seemed forever – hard to believe how unprepared our medical team was, leaving the team with a man down in such a match.

England eventually broke the dead lock in the 29th minute. Marcus Rashford gave the ball to Luke Shaw through Ristovski’s leds and the later perfectly served Kane who easily tapped in.

The opening goal broke the little confidence the Macedonians had. Ten minutes later Bukayo Saka doubled the lead. Trent Alexander-Arnold gave the ball to Kyle Walker on the right, Walker found Saka in the box who scored with a powerful strike.

In the last minute before the half-time break Ristovski easily gave the ball to Kane after making a slow pass to Velkovski. Kane passed it to Jordan Henderson, who found Rashford in the box and the Manchester United played scored on his home stadium.

Ristovski could not continue, so Bejtulai stepped in half-time. The second half was even worse for the Lynx. Just two minutes into the half and Saka fired a great shot from the edge of the box and beat Dimitrievski. Alioski and Zajkov were simply too soft with Saka, allowing him to maneuver through them and fire undisturbed. Four minutes later and England got a 5:0 lead. Kane collected the ball at the center, gave a through ball to Saka who one on one with Dimitrievski celebrated his first career hat-trick.

The minutes 57-58 were underway when an unusual event took place. Seven player lined up to enter the field as Milevski made 3 changes, while Southgate made 4. Dorian Babunski, Nikola Serafimov and Jani Atanasov substituted Trajkovski, Zajkov and Ademi, while Conor Gallagher, Jack Grealish, Phil Foden and Kalvin Philips came in instead Henderson, Rashford, Saka and Rice.

Sixth goal came in the 64th minute. Serafimov cleared a ball for Kane, but Philips got it and easily put it in the Macedonian net. Macedonia hadn’t let in 6 goals since the WC qualifier in 2005 away to Czechia when we lost 6:1 after leading 0:1.

Too much time was left until the end and is smelled so bad that Macedonia would record its heaviest defeat in its history. That happened when England got a penalty kick in the 72nd minute as Bejtulai pulled John Stones with both his hands. The fouls happened outside the box with Stones falling inside, but even VAR did not reacted. Kane beat Dimitrievski setting the final score (luckily).

Highlights:

“We had our tactical ideas before the game and we fulfilled them up until the first goal. Afterwards it went downhill and the quality of the opponent was evident after that. We have to congratulate [England], our opponent was too strong. After the emotions and exhaustion that we suffered against Ukraine, it was obvious the players had been affected by that, but we had to be ready to go two levels up to compete against a team like this” – Said Milevski after the match.

Тhe statistics for this match are brutal for Macedonia. Our players never managed to attempt a shot towards the home goal, leaving keeper Pickford practically without job for the entire 90 minutes.

Before this disaster, Macedonia had suffered several 5:0 defeats and one 6:1, but had never conceded 7 goals (click here for all time statistics). Blagoja Milevski and his players now go down in history for playing the worst match ever.

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