Pelister had a hard time in Poland. Lech confirmed their class and won easily 4:0 in Poznań.

Our team from Bitola waited a long time to play again an international game, unfortunately their opponent was too strong. Pelister fielded a defensive line-up with three central backs (Kovachev, Todorovski and Bojović) and Toshevski and Blagoja Ljamchevski on the lateral positions. Markoski and Iliev opened in defensive midfield, Peev and Lucas on the wings, while Ilijoski was the centre-forward.

Goalie Petrovski was able to keep a clean sheet for almost 30 minutes, but than Lech netted through a penalty. Two more goals followed in a span of just ten minutes and the home side entered the break with a comfortable 3:0 lead. Pelister had to change something, thus coach Naci Şensoy brought in winger Petrov for centre-back Bojović directly after the half-time break. The result was a better away side. In the 49th mintue Pelister nearly netted a goal when first Ljamchevski fired a good shot from a free-kick and afterwards there was a blocked shot from inside the box. A couple of minutes later Pelister had one more chance through a free-kick. The team gained some confidence and was able to put up a good fight, but only Lech was able to find the net in the second half.

Highlights:

The duel is already decided, still Pelister should try to gain a good result in the second game. It was obvious that the defensive minded formation wasn’t working, Pelister wasn’t able to keep the ball, thus the pressure on the defense was too big. The team played much better after switching to their common formation with four defenders.