Macedonia lost 3:0 against Croatia in the first of the two friendly matches this June.
photo by FFM: Trajkovski at the match
Croatia had an easy preparation match for the upcoming 2024 EURO. Macedonia failed to be a serious threat despite home coach Zlatko Dalic fielding a combined squad without the likes of Luka Modrić and Marcelo Brozović.
Blagoja Milevski started with Stole Dimitrievski between posts and for the first time captain (instead of injured Enis Bardhi), Gjoko Zajkov, Darko Velkovski and Visar Musliu as the trio central defenders with Stefan Ashkovski and Ezgjan Alioski as wing backs. In the midfield were Jani Atanasov, Isnik Alimi and Elif Elmas, while Bojan Miovski and Aleksandar Trajkovski were up front.
Photo: FFM
Before the match the hosts honored today’s captain Mateo Kovačić who was making with 100th appearance.
Introducing @mateokovacic8 into #Croatia Club 💯! 🤝👕🟥⬜️#Family #Vatreni❤️🔥 pic.twitter.com/8EMg70fwS9
— HNS (@HNS_CFF) June 3, 2024
For Macedonia, Velkovski played his 50th match.
The Croats early in the 10th minute broke the dead lock when Lovro Majer scored directly from a free kick as Dimitrievski put only 3 players in the wall.
Macedonia tried a few counter attacks, but nothing dangerous enough to threaten Croatia’s goal.
In the last minute before the break Majer scored again doubling the lead after a great combination with Bruno Petković, who backheeled to Majer in front of the goal.
Both coaches made substitutions in the second half. Surprisingly, Milevski not only that did not change anyone during the break, but he didn’t even use all 6 available substitutions. Same story as again on a friendly he is not using all the subs.
Macedonia continued with the bad play, had no idea how to test Croatia and could not create a serious chance.
Eleven minutes from time substitute Marco Pašalić scored for 3:0 after Ante Budimir’s headers was deflected by Dimitrievski. That was the final score.
Alioski once again played 90 minutes despite not playing at all for his team in Saudi Arabia. His last club appearance was August 23 last year. In March he played one half against Moldova and 90 minutes against Montenegro. He is definitely Milevski’s favorite.
Highlights:
This was the 9th match between Macedonia and Croatia. The Croat obviously have more wins, this was their 6th, but they had never won with more than a goal difference.
Macedonia – 
Croatia statistics: G9 W1 D2 L6 GD 9:15
14.10.1998 2:3 defeat (match report) Q
05.06.1999 1:1 draw (match report) Q
09.02.2003 2:2 draw (match report) F
28.04.2004 0:1 defeat (match report) F
24.03.2007 1:2 defeat (match report) Q
17.11.2007 2:0 win (match report) Q
07.09.2012 0:1 defeat (match report) Q
12.10.2012 1:2 defeat (match report) Q
03.06.2024 0:3 defeat (match report) F
Macedonia now heads to Czechia where next Monday will face their national team in Hradec Králové in what will be a last test for Czechia before their EURO appearance later this month.