The Macedonian U21 national team once again failed to win a game in the qualifications for the EURO 2011, this time Greece took the three points with the 2:1 win in Strumica.
Greece took the lead in the 39th minute after the corner taken by Dimitrios Giantsis, when captain Dimitrios Siovas with a header scored for 1:0 after the Macedonian defence left him alone and the keeper Naumovski didn’t react. Greece played better in the first half and went to the changing room with a 1:0 lead.
In the second half Macedonia started playing much better than the first, creating chances and attemping to score towards the Greek goal. In the 64th minute Daniel Georgievski eventualy score a goal and tied the result on 1:1. Macedonia tried to score a winner, but the finnishing of the created chances wasn’t very good. Before the second Greek goal, Mirko Ivanovski was attacking in the box when one of the Greek defenders played with hand, but the Romanian referee Ionuţ Marius Avram decided not to award a penalty for Macedonia and by that he directly influented the result. Some minute later, in the 80th minute, same situation occured outside the Macedonian box when Ferhan Hasani played with hand, but this time the Romanian referee whistled for a free kick from which Greece scored the winning goal with another header, this time by Anastasios Papazoglou.
Macedonia’s next and final game is on Tuesday away against Portugal in Vila Nova de Gaia municipality of Porto.
Stadium: Mladost in Strumica
Referee: Ionuţ Marius Avram (Romania)
Assistants: Octavian Sovre and Miklós István Nagy (Romania)
4th referee: Radu Marian Petrescu (Romania)
Scorers: Georgievski 64′ – Siovas 39′, Am. Papazoglou 80′
Yellow cards: Bogdanovik, Ivanovski, Skondras, An. Papazoglou, At. Papazoglou, Fetfatzidis.
Macedonia: Naumovski; Georgievski, Ristevski, Dimitrovski (c), Bogdanovik; Urdinov (Spirovski 63′), Duranski (Hasani 46′), Petrovik (An. Stankov 77′), Muarem; Petrov, Ivanovski. Coach: Boban Babunski.
Greece: Giakoumis; Skondras, An. Papazoglou, Papadopoulos, Siovas (c); Ioannidis, Koutsianikoulis (Fetfatzidis 64′), Gentzoglou, At. Papazoglou; Dimoutsos (Argyropoulos 85′), Giantsis (Fortounis 73′). Coach: Georgios Georgiadis.