Macedonia will play two friendly matches in June 2024 against the national teams of Croatia and Czechia.

photo by Drago Sopta/HNS: Croatia this fall

The match against Croatia was confirmed on Thursday by both FFM and HNS. It will take place on 3 June in the city of Rijeka and it will be the first test for Croatia in their preparations for the 2024 EURO. The stadium chosen by Croatian for this match is Rujevica, home of top flight side Rijeka. The Croatian national team will have a training camp in the region and that is why this city was chosen as host.

“It is a pleasure for us that we will play a friendly against Croatia, one of the strongest European teams. This is a confirmation of our status, strong national teams look at our team with great respect. The match will be a great opportunity for us to progress as a team and of course to try to increase the competition in the team before the start of the qualifying matches”, said the NT coach Blagoja Milevski, who on Wednesday extended the contract with FFM.

“Macedonia is an excellent opponent for us in that first phase of the 2024 EURO preparations. It is a national team that drew at home with Italy and England this fall, which shows that we have a real test ahead of us through which we will find out where we are at that moment and what we still need to work on before we go to Germany. Considering the preparations in Rijeka, we wanted to play at Rujevica to avoid an additional trip, so this deal fulfills everything we wanted from that first match in June”, said Zlatko Dalić, the head coach of Croatia.

3 June, Rijeka: 🇭🇷🆚🇲🇰
🔜 #EURO2024#Family #Vatreni❤️‍🔥 pic.twitter.com/2h6iPJY6l7

— HNS (@HNS_CFF) December 28, 2023

After that Macedonia will head to Czechia for another road friendly on 10 June. This match is still not officially confirmed, but coach Milevski in a statement for SportSport said that pretty much it is a done deal. He added that a friendly against Moldova in March is a possibility.

The Czech team; photo: FAČR

Croatia start the 2024 EURO on 15 June against Spain in the Group B and later will play against Italy and Albania, while Czechia start on the 18th against Portugal in Group F and will later face Turkey and one of the Match play-off winners.

Past encounters:

vs. Croatia (G8 W1 D2 L5 GD 9:12)
14.10.1998 2:3 defeat (match report) Q
05.06.1999 1:1 draw (match report) Q
09.02.2003 2:2 draw (match report) F
28.04.2004 0:1 defeat (match report) F
24.03.2007 1:2 defeat (match report) Q
17.11.2007 2:0 win (match report) Q
07.09.2012 0:1 defeat (match report) Q
12.10.2012 1:2 defeat (match report) Q

vs. Czechia (G3 W0 D1 L2 GD 2:9)
28.02.2001 1:1 draw (match report) F
17.11.2004 0:2 defeat (match report) Q
08.06.2005 1:6 defeat (match report) Q