Macedonia used the idle situation in the world Cup qualifiers to play a friendly against Latvia that did not bring any attractive football on the cold autumn evening in Skopje.
photo by Matejcho: Milan Ristovski in duel with Daniels Balodis
Coach Blagoja Milevski used the friendly to test some players, but also fielded some regular. It is very strange that he never gives a chance to the three reserve keepers Iliev, Aleksovski and Shishkovski, even on friendly matches such as this one. He started with Strole Dimitrievski between the posts, Stefan Ashkovski, Nikola Serafimov, Andrej Stojchevski and Bojan Ilievski in the defense, captain Enis Bardhi, Isnik Alimi and Tihomir Kostadinov in the midfield and Darko Churlinov, Elmin Rastoder and Milan Ristovski in the attack.
Around the 10th minute keeper Dimitrievski asked for medical assistance and Dejan Iliev started to warming up. He recovered and continued to play, but gave a warning to the coach that he should have kept him for the more important match against Wales on Tuesday.
The first real chance came in the 14th minute when Ristovski instead of assisting for Rastoder in front of him or on the right to a teammate he decided to fire a shot that went straight to keeper Matrevics.
The next was for Latvia in the 24th minute when Gutkovskis missed the target. Four minutes later Bardhi from free kick found Kostadinov who headed the ball only for Matrevics to make a save, while Stojchevski missed the target on the rebound, but claimed that the ball was redirected in a corner kick by a visitor.
The best chance in the opening half was in the 37th minute when from a close range Gutkovskis managed to shot while falling down, but Dimitrievski blocked from the goal line.
Three minutes later Churlinov served Bardhi outside the box, his shot was blocked but still was going in only for Matrevics to punch it in a corner. After the corner kick Serafimov headed for another save of the Latvian keeper.
After the break Rastoder had a great chance in the 57th minute when he cam in the box from right and fired, but Matrevics saved.
In the 70th minute Ikaunieks sent a weird shot that had a strange fall and hit the crossbar.
Both coaches used 6 substitutions as this boring match eventually ended in a goalless draw.
This was the 6th match between Macedonian and Latvia and the first draw as Macedonia celebrated in the previous five.