Schalke 04 defeated Vardar 2:3 in the friendly match played today on National Arena Philip II of Macedon.

Schalke 04 and Vardar have finished the friendly football spectacle in Skopje and the German side came victorious. The visitors had a three goals lead on half-time, but Vardar managed to come back until 2:3. However, they were not able to make a complete come-back.

Although 4th placed team from German Bundesliga arrived in Skopje, no more then 7.000-8.000 fans showed up on Filip II. Schalke played with most of their best players and although Vardar had some good chances before the first goal came. Klass Huntelaar opened the scoreline in 27th minute with a great shot from far, while only five minutes later Tranquillo Barnetta doubled the lead. When Bastos scored Schalke’s third goal in 38th minute, it seemed like Vardar is going for a disaster. It was 0:3 on half-time when both coaches decided to make several changes.

The second half went better for Vardar and they managed to pull two goals back. Before Filip Petrov scoring Vardar’s first goal in 68th minute, hosts had couple of chances. Dimitrovski hit the bar on the start of the half, while Gimenez had a good chance in 66th minute. Andrej Acevski set the final score of the match in 78th minute scoring a nice goal from around 20 meters. Both teams had one more chance before the full time whistle, when Marica hit the bar from a free-kick in 88th minute and Bonifacio’s header in 89th minute was saved by Fahrman.

National Arena Philip II of Macedon
Referee: Dimitar Mechkarovski

Vardar: Simov; Ilievski, Dimitrovski, Cikarski, Vajs; Stjepanovikj, Petrović, Mitev, Manevski; Stojkov, Kostovski. Also played: Milić, Zafirovski, Acevski, Tanevski, Rangjelovikj, Mersovski, Petrov, Lazarevski, Giménez, Bonifácio, Stamatovski.

Schalke 04: Fährmann; Höwedes, Pliatsikas, Fuchs, Raffael; Erdmann, Barnetta, Matip, Höger; Marica, Huntelaar. Also played: Pukki, Borgmann, Sabah, Sobottka.

Goalscorers: Filip Petrov 68′, Andrej Acevski 78′ – Klass Jan Huntelaar 27′, Tranquillo Barnetta 32′, Michel Bastos 37′.