Macedonia will have the honor to play a friendly against Brazil before the 2014 World Cup takes place.

Brazil is hosting the 2014 FIFA World Cup and before their opening match on 12 June, they will play three friendlies as part of their preparations. FFM accepted the offer by the CBF, although it will mean traveling to South America for only one game. However, such an occasion rarely happens to Macedonia so it was an offer that couldn’t be refused.

The friendly game is scheduled for 27 May at the Arena Amazônia in Manaus, which is actually one of the 12 venues for the World Cup. Due to this game, Macedonia had to cancel the already arranged friendly against Cameroon, scheduled for 26 May in Austria. Later, Brazil will also host Panama (3 June) and Serbia (6 June) before they eventually open the World Cup against Croatia. It’s not a shock why the popular Canarinhos are arranging matches with Macedonia and Serbia, countries that share similar footballing cultures as Croatia by being from the Balkan region.

So far, Macedonia has faced only one team from South America which came back in 2006. In a match played in Spain, Macedonia defeated Ecuador 2:1. Furthermore, Macedonia played Paraguay in 2005 but that was an unofficial game since Macedonia played with its B squad.

The game against Brazil, although miles away from the Macedonian fans, will definitely be a match to remember for our small country. Neymar against Shikov, Ibraimi against David Luiz! Only if it wasn’t an April fools’ joke!

Happy April fools’ day!