Macedonia defeated Armenia in the friendly match played in Strumica thanks to the goals scored by Trajkovski, Ristovski and debutante Daci.
photo by FFM: The Lynx celebrate Ristovski’s goal
Coach Blagoja Milevski made 8 changes regarding the eleven that started against Ukraine, as he said at yesterday’s press conference. He fielded reserve goalkeeper Damjan Shishkovski, in the defense were Visar Musliu, Nikola Serafimov and Ahmed Iljazovski, in midfield Dimitar Mitrovski, Arijan Ademi and Isnik Alimi, wingers were Aleksandar Trajkovski and Bojan Dimoski, while in the attack were Elif Elmas and Milan Ristovski. The captain’s armband went to Elmas’ arm, first time for him to get that honor.
Armenia was very withdrawn the beginning, allowing Macedonia to take the initiative and keep the possession. On several occasions all eleven Armenians were packed defending the goal. It was Alimi who first tried to scored after firing a shot that visiting keeper Čančarević managed to save. Although the Lynx created several promising chances, Macedonia did not take advantage of the initiative in the opening twenty minutes, and then the Armenians eventually started playing more freely, and created few chances. Dashyan fired from distance, while Ranos from inside the box, but the score did not change.
Two minutes before the break, Macedonia finally scored. Elmas got a ball on the center, ran towards the goal, passed to Trajkovski, who nicely dribbled Voskanyan and scored his 21st national team goal.
During the break Milevski decided not to make any changes, so he changed for the first time in the 55th minute when Jani Atanasov and Darko Churlinov entered taking the places of Ademi and Trajkovski. Just 4 minutes after that event Ristovski doubled the lead when Elmas shot from the left, hit the right post, the ball bounced in front of Ristovski who immediately took advantage of the opportunity and scored.
As changes were made on both sides, the tempo also decreased, although the Macedonians still seemed far more playful and in a better mood. And the pesky rain fell continuously throughout the match.
In the 88th minute came the third goal. Newly entered Erdon Daci, a debutante, sent a cross for Elmas from the Macedonian half field, Elmas ran and entered the box, Daci followed him all the time, Elmas passed the ball towards him, the visiting captain for a moment intercepted it, but Daci then collected the ball in front of the Armenian goalkeeper and from a turnaround fired into the net.
When everyone thought that Macedonia would record a clean sheet victory, deep in stoppage time the Armenians took a free kick from left. Sperstyan sent a normal low shot, but keeper Shishkovski reacted disastrously, giving away a goal to Armenia for a final result of 3:1.
The goals: