Good test match for Angelovski and his team as Macedonia defeated the Scandinavian team with goals by Pandev and Markoski.

Not just a win, but a win in a good play. Under the cold and rainy weather in Skopje, conditions closer to the visitors, Macedonia ended the year 2017 in style.

Coach Igor Angelovski fielded the standard team with couple of forced changes. Instead of testing new players and trying new formations and tactics, he wanted a positive result from this friendly match in order to climb even more on the FIFA ranking list. Everyone expected to finally see David Mitov Nilsson between the posts, but he remained a reserve and didn’t even get a chance in the rest of the game. Without Ilija Nestorovski, whose Palermo insisted to have him available for the important league game against Cremonese, Angelovski fielded his teammate Aleksandar Trajkovski.

Both teams were very active and it was obvious that wanted the win. The first great chance was for the visitors when in the 19th minute Martin Ødegaard hit the bar. When everybody thought that the first half would end goalless, Pandev and Alioski combined a great action with the later assisting to Goran who scored his 31st international goal in his 92nd appearance.

Unlike Lasse Lagerbäck who made two substitution on half-time, Angelovski kept the same team and made the first change in the 58th minute when Hasani took the place of Trajkovski. After scoring in three games in a row (vs. Albania, Italy and Liechtenstein), Alex ended his goalscoring form.

Macedonia was even better in the second half, controlled the game and kept the Norwegians far from Dimitrievski’s goal. Alioski had a chance to double the lead when Pandev perfectly served him in the box, but he failed to score from just few meters.

The second goal came deep into the stoppage time. Visiting keeper Sten Grytebust had to clear a ball outside the box, but it reaches newly introduced Kire Markoski who scored his first ever national team goal cementing the victory.

Highlights:

This was the fourth game between Macedonia and Norway and the first win the the Lynx.

To view the match report, click here.