The Football Federation of Macedonia has started compiling names for the successor of Mirsad Jonuz as manager of the national team.
The President of FFM, Hari Hagi-Risteski, has begun discussions with potential candidates for the next manager of the Macedonian national team. The first people interviewed for the position where Gjoko Hadzievski and Gjore Jovanovski who both have managed the national team in the past. Both coaches are currently without a job as Hadzievski resigned as manager of Simurg after the season in Azerbaijan while Jovanovski was recently named the manager of the Bangladesh national team but he quit after refusing to travel to Pakistan with the national team due to safety concerns. Hagi-Risteski also held a meeting with Vujadin Stanojkovik, the president for the trainer organization within FFM, and it was announced that the organization will also play a part in the selection of the next manager.
The FFM president has also had telephone conversations with foreign coaches interested in the position such as Zoran Filipović, Ljupko Petrović, Plamen Markov, and Ziya Doğan who will arrive tomorrow for negotiations in Skopje. Filipović was the former manager of the Montenegro national team, Plamen Markov had two stints in the past as manager of the Bulgarian national team, while Doğan is a Turkish football manager.
At the same time, contacts have been made with the manager of Cedomir Janevski. He is also without a club at the moment after he left Cypriot club Enosis Neon Paralimni. Janevski lives in Belgium and has that western mentality plus he knows Macedonian football which is another benefit. Janevski has been an assistant coach for teams like Club Brugge, Gent, and Olympiacos and has managed Crvena Zvezda and Enosis Neon Paralimni. He has a great relationship with Ivan Trickovski and it was Janevski who brought Tricko to Cyprus with Enosis after his career stalled in Crvena Zvezda. Who knows where Trickovski would be today if it wasn’t for Janevski? Tricko wasn’t playing at Crvena Zvezda but his one great season with Enosis ended up with Trickovski making a transfer to Cypriot giants APOEL where he has been very successful.
Hagi-Risteski also said that there are other managers who are interesting for FFM but those managers are unlikely because they are outside of the financial capabilities of FFM. He went on to add that FFM will look at all options and a new manager will be named no later than 15 July 2011. FFM wants the new manager to have enough time to get prepared for their first game in charge which will be on 10 August 2011 in a friendly against Azerbaijan in Baku.