It appears that the planned friendly against Equatorial Guinea on June 9 will not take place after all.

Although that friendly is still listed on FIFA’s official website, both Macedonski Sport and sportmedia.mk reported that the friendly has been canceled. Also, the Macedonian federation has not released any information, but that is telling. If the friendly was set, then FFM would have confirmed it by now. However, that didn’t happen and now they will be searching for a new opponent.

Since a new manager has been hired, a friendly would be preferred prior to the June 14 EURO qualifier against Slovakia. Such a game would allow Ljubinko Drulović to get a glimpse at the players from the sidelines as opposed to just watching film of them. That would be valuable before deciding who to field versus Slovakia, but a new friendly opponent will be needed.

As a reminder, prior to Macedonia facing Spain on September 8 of last year, they played a friendly against a local team named “Club de Fútbol Torre Levante Orriols” on September 4 (Macedonia won that game 4:0). They may opt to do something similar this time if another national team can’t be scheduled on that date (June 9). Either way, more should be known in the near future with the Slovakia qualifier quickly approaching.