Football, euphoria, celebrations, Tartan Army and high spirit, this is how Macedonia feels at the moment, the main subject is football and nothing else matter.
The World Cup 2010 qualifying campaign started and could not have a better script for Macedonia, first game and first win for our National team against the mighty Scotland who are one of the favorites to qualify from our group.
The atmosphere was building for a long time and with the added presence of the Tartan Army around for the last few days made this to be one big spectacle. With the game getting closer the pressure was mounting more and more on our football players but they rise to the occasion on best possible way and show that we are capable of big achievements.
On a exceptionally hot day but circumstances equally same for both teams our boys came out victorious on the end and send the whole nation in to ecstasy and jubilation. In the first half Macedonia played better and took the lead just after five minutes, after a free kick and rebound from the post Ilco Naumoski was the fastest to react and put the ball in to the net, in the second half Scotland started much better and had a better possession in the early stages but didn’t managed to level the score, overall throughout the game we created more dangerous chances than Scotland and the fact that the Scottish goalkeeper was announced as a Man of the Match explains many things, so on the end Macedonia deservedly won. There were three or four outstanding players in our team but after such a big victory the credit must go to every single player and the coach, after this result the door for a high position in our group is wide open so we need to build on further starting with the Dutch on Wednesday, they are hot favorites but for sure we are not going in to this game just to make the numbers, with the positive atmosphere and self confidence that our players have at the moment plus with fanatical support of the home crowd Macedonia can get to a good result and finally become a serious contender for a qualifying spot.
The atmosphere in and out of the stadium for the game against Scotland was excellent but overshadowed with the incident that happened between a set of home supporters and the police regarding a photo banner, according to the delegate of the match the banner had a political reasons to be displayed and asked to be removed from the stands so the police had to use force to do so, It’s up to somebody else to judge if those demands from the delegate were the right one but we see much more serious banners displayed during the football matches in our neighboring countries and nobody takes any action.