Out of the original 22 player squad that was called up for the Latvia friendly, two players in Mario Gjurovski and Boban Grncharov did not arrive in Macedonia and will miss the Latvia friendly.
Whenever a player is called up to the national team, a respective football federation has to send out an invitation to each player’s club team to receive approval for that player to join his country’s squad. In the case of Mario Gjurovski, several media reported that his club team Muangthong United would not agree for Mario to join the Macedonian team in preparation for the Latvia friendly. Another tricky issue is that Mario, by being under contract in Thailand, plays within the rules of Asian Football Confederation (AFC), a different entity than European football governing body UEFA.
As for Grncharov, he finds himself in the troubled Crimea region after signing with Simferepol based club Tavriya earlier in the winter transfer window. There has been unrest there between Russia and Ukraine, and Grncharov decided it was best to stay in Ukraine to be with his wife and young child. Boban and his Tavriya teammates have been moved to the city of Donetsk after the unrest began in the Crimea region. However, the situation is still tense so Grncharov has decided to stay there in order to be with his family.
Macedonia will not call up any replacements for M. Gjurovski and Grncharov. Instead, manager Boshko Gjurovski will now have 20 available players for the Latvia friendly that will be played later today.
Below are the 20 players available for the Latvia encounter:
Goalkeepers: Tome Pachovski, Kristijan Naumovski
Defenders: Vanche Shikov, Daniel Georgievski, Goran Popov, Kire Ristevski, Daniel Mojsov, Aleksandar Todorovski
Midfielders: Muhamed Demiri, Ostoja Stjepanovikj, Stefan Spirovski, Muarem Muarem
Attackers: Agim Ibraimi, Ivan Trichkovski, Jovan Kostovski, Dejan Blazhevski, Ferhan Hasani, Mirko Ivanovski, Besart Ibraimi, Krste Velkoski