The U21 national team has seen three more players withdraw ahead of Monday’s road friendly against Slovenia.

After Darko Velkovski, Enis Bardhi and Marjan Radeski, all promoted to the senior national team, today the U21 squad lost three more key players in David Babunski, Taulant Sulejmanov-Seferi and Boban Nikolov.

Babunski has club obligations with Barcelona B. During the international break, most second division leagues across Europe do not take breaks. So, since Barcelona B faces Tenerife this Sunday, Babunski was excused from the team. As a reminder, the U21 sides of Slovenia and Macedonia will play their friendly on Monday, March 30, in Celje.

As for the other two players, Taulant Sulejmanov-Seferi and Boban Nikolov, both of them withdrew due to injuries. Taulant will actually have to undergo a knee surgery, while Boban is building up his fitness after a long-term injury. The U21 coaches don’t want to rush Nikolov who is just recovering from his injury, so the decision was made to keep him out.

To cover for the absences, the manager Blagoja Milevski has called up Demir Imeri, Kire Markoski, Filip Stojanovski and Tihomir Kostadinov.