John Toshack is no longer manager of the Macedonian national team after a recent meeting with new FFM president Ilcho Gjorgjioski.

Macedonia will have a new manager, less then a month before the start of the 2014 World Cup qualifications, following a meeting by Toshack and Ilcho Gjorgjioski, the new FFM president, earlier in the week.  Basically, Gjorgjioski planned on keeping Toshack at the helm but only on certain conditions.  He asked John Toshack to reside in Macedonia (the current process saw Toshack live in Spain and arrive in Macedonia several days before an actual match), have direct insight into the development of Macedonian football, to be involved in the education of coaches and to more closely play a factor in the improvement of conditions in Macedonian football.

Toshack showed understanding to the required conditions insisted by the new leadership of the Football Federation of Macedonia, but was not willing to work under those terms at this point.  Thus, FFM and Toshack agreed to terminate his contract and now the search begins for a new manager.

The veteran coach took over as Macedonian manager on 7 August 2011 so his journey lasted for about a year.  Macedonia did not show much improvement under Toshack and continued to have the same problems as before, meaning playing to the level of its opposition.  For example, Macedonia held Portugal to a draw in Toshack’s best result of his tenure, but also lost to Luxembourg.

Overall, Toshack managed just 8 games (4 friendlies and 4 qualifiers) for Macedonia during his one year stay with the senior national team.  In those games, Macedonia amassed just one win, four draws and three losses.  The lone win came against Andorra (EURO 2012 qualifier), the four draws came against Portugal, Angola, Albania and Slovakia (First three were friendlies while Slovakia was a EURO 2012 qualifier), and the three losses came against Russia, Armenia and Luxembourg (First two being EURO 2012 qualifiers while Luxembourg was a friendly).  Keep in mind that Macedonia also played a friendly against Azerbaijan on 10 August 2011, several days after Toshack took over, but he did not actually manage that game as Boban Babunski served as the interim coach.

According to reports, Goce Sedloski will serve as interim coach for the forthcoming friendly against Lithuania on 15 August.  FFM, in the meantime, under new president Ilcho Gjorgjioski, will begin the search for a new manager that will lead Macedonia for the 2014 World Cup qualifications.  The timing is poor, considering the qualifiers get under way in less then a month, but FFM felt it was necessary to make a change since Toshack was not ready to accept the required conditions that Gjorgjioski feels are necessary to move Macedonian football on the right path.

There will be a press conference tomorrow morning which both Toshack and Gjorgjioski will attend.  They will likely talk more in depth about what led to the change and plans for the future.