Not good news for Macedonian national team coach Blagoja Milevski as Elif Elmas and Tihomir Kostadinov remain suspended for the Italy play-off.

photo by FFM

FIFA decided to accept the request sent by UEFA regarding the transfer of the accumulated yellow cards during the 2022 World Cup qualifiers into the play-offs.

However, those players who have an automatic suspension for having already accumulated a pair of cards, will remain suspended.

Wiped out are the single yellow cards, meaning that if booked against Italy none of our players will get suspended for the possible final play-off.

Both Macedonia and Italy had 10 such players (each). Before this change our players that would enter the match carrying a yellow card from the qualifying group were Stole Dimitriesvki, Darko Velkovski, Stefan Spirovski, Stefan Ristovski, Ezgjan Alioski, Boban Nikolov, Marjan Radeski, Bojan Miovski, Vlatko Stojanovski and Adis Jahovikj, while Roberto Mancini feared suspension for Nicolò Barella, Federico Bernardeschi, Giorgio Chiellini, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Lorenzo Insigne, Lorenzo Pellegrini, Matteo Pessina, Rafael Tolói, Sandro Tonali and Federico Chiesa who meanwhile got injured and is ruled out from this clash.

Macedonia travels to Italy on 24 March for the single-legged match with the winner advancing for the final play-off against Portugal or Turkey.