Macedonia has no more clubs left the European competitions this season as Shkëndija tonight failed to defeat Hibernian in the Conference League third qualifying round and got eliminated. The return leg in Skopje ended in a goalless draw.

photo by KF Shkëndija Tetovo

After the undeserved 2:1 defeat in the opening leg in Edinburgh, Shkëndija hosted Hibernian in Skopje. Despite the information that striker Marko Gjorgjievski, who scored for 1:1 in Scotland, had recovered from the toe injury, but he eventually did not make the match day squad as get got injured again on the last training yesterday. Regarding the starting eleven, coach Artim Polozhani made only one change: since Bojan Dimoski returned, he started on left back and captain Arbin Zejnullai returned on his regular position in midfield, while Endrit Krasniqi got benched.

The first half was quite even. Both teams did not make a serious attempt, only a couple of shot that were not really threats. Despite Shkëndija being the one who had to score, they seemed like not wanting to risk.

After the second half Shkëndija started attacking more and left more space for Hibernian to make counter attacks. The first real chance of the match came in the 67th minute when Fahd Ndzengue fired a good shot, but over the bar.

Then in 78th minute Almir Kryeziu for the third time escaped his opponent of the left flank, served Fabrice Tamba in the box, but the Senegalese slipped and his shot went wide. Unfortunately that was the last real chance. Shkëndija failed to score, meaning that they face elimination losing 2:1 on aggregate.

For Shkëndija this was the 75th European match, so they are now record holders for a Macedonian club in Europe as they overpassed Vardar, who remains at 74.

Hibernian advances in the play-off phase where will face the winner of the tie between Gent and Göteborg and will fight for a spot in the Conference League league phase.

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