Despite the dominant win over Faroe Islands, Macedonia U19 finished in third place after Montenegro U19 defeated their counterparts from Turkey.

Macedonia U19 did its part by cruising past Faroe Islands U19 5:0, but Macedonia still fell short of a top 2 finish after Montenegro U19 defeated Turkey U19 in the other game of the group.

Thus, after the three games, Macedonia, Turkey and Montenegro each finished with six points.  All three teams beat Faroe Islands, while they alternated victories against each other.  Macedonia beat Montenegro but lost to Turkey, Montenegro defeated Turkey but lost to Macedonia, while Turkey downed Macedonia but lost to Montenegro.

The first tiebreaker in such a situation comes to goal difference in the games featuring these three teams.  Goal difference against Faroe Islands is not counted in the tiebreaker. 

So, Turkey finished at 1st place at +2 (beat Macedonia by three goals, lost to Montenegro by one goal), Montenegro was second at 0 (beat Turkey by one goal and lost to Macedonia by one goal), while Macedonia was third at -2 (lost to Turkey by three goals and beat Montenegro by one goal).

Macedonia still has hopes of reaching the elite round if they happen to be the best ranked third placed team, based on results and goal difference against top two teams in each of the 13 groups that make up the qualifying round.  However, the three goal loss against Turkey will be difficult to overcome due to the emphasis placed on goal difference. 

This was the only group that has already completed the qualifying round.  The other 12 groups will do the same in October and November.

As for today’s game, Macedonia U19 had five different goalscorers to make easy work of Faroe Islands.  Reaching the back of the net were Kire Markovski, Darko Velkovski, Hristijan Kostovski, Demir Imeri and Tauljant Sulejmanov.  Interestingly, four of the five goalscorers are members of Rabotnichki, with Kostovski being the lone scorer who features for a different team in Makedonija Gjorche Petrov.

Macedonia U19 lineup: Aleksovski; Ristovski, Zajkov, Trajkovikj (85′ Asani), Talevski; Bardi, Velkovski (76′ Sulejmanov), Kostovski; Bojku, Markovski (69′ Imeri), Radeski.