After Nikolce Noveski, fellow defender Goran Popov was also withdrawn due to an injury.  To compensate for the loss, Vladimir Dimitrovski, who can play CB or LB, was added to the squad.

Earlier today, Goran Popov called manager John Toshack and informed him that after two tough trainings with Dynamo Kyiv, his knee flared up and the team doctors asked Popov to withdraw from the national team out of fear that Goran would re-aggravate a knee injury that required an operation in November of last year.

Thus, FFM and Toshack withdrew Popov for the Luxembourg friendly and called up versatile defender Vladimir Dimitrovski to take his place.  Macedonia originally had 19 players but with the withdrawals of Noveski and Popov, Toshack needed to add one player to at least have 18 players available for Wednesday’s friendly.  There will be no replacement for Noveski who will still arrive in Luxembourg on Wednesday to watch the game.  As for Popov, he will stay with Dynamo Kyiv to deal with the latest setback as his club is currently holding winter preparations in Israel.

The 23-year-old Vladimir Dimitrovski plays his club football in the Czech Republic with Mladá Boleslav.  Vladimir can play either CB or LB and has made 2 appearances for the senior national team after formerly being a regular for the youth national teams as well.