Macedonian national team coach Blagoja Milevski today announced the list of summoned players for the upcoming 2024 EURO qualification matches against Italy at home and Malta away.

photo by FFM: Milevski at the press-conference

Milevski called up 26 players, including two debutantes in 26-year-old right back of the Danish top flight side Hvidovre, Ahmed Iljazovski, born and raised in Denmark who has not yet played for any youth national teams, and the former youth Macedonian national team winger Dimitar Mitrovski. He is now 24-years-old now and previously performed for all Macedonian youth national teams.

The list, as expected, does not include captain Stefan Ristovski, who announced that he will not play for the national team while Milevski is the head coach. His younger brother Milan is among those invited. Enis Bardhi will be the new captain, which is logic solution as he was vice captain when Ristovski was playing.

The coach announced the he intended to summon 3 other players. Darko Churlinov was on the list as he started training after recovering from sepsis, but eventually he won’t be able to perform at this stage. Winger Marjan Radeski, who played in excellent form for Struga in the European competitions this summer, was also on the list, same as attacker Valon Ethemi, both injured.

Stole Dimitrievski – Rayo Vallecano
Damjan Shishkovski – Doxa
Igor Aleksovski – Rabotnichki

Visar Musliu – Paderborn
Gjoko Zajkov – U Craiova
Nikola Serafimov – Fehérvár
Jovan Manev – Adana Demirspor
Ezgjan Alioski – Al Ahli
Bojan Dimoski – Akron
Ahmed Iljazovski – Hvidovre
Stefan Ashkovski – no club
Darko Velkovski – Al Ettifaq

Enis Bardhi – Trabzonspor
Jani Atanasov – Cracovia
Agon Elezi – Varaždin
Arijan Ademi – Běijīng Guó’ān
Elif Elmas – Napoli
David Babunski – Mezőkövesd
Davor Zdravkovski – Motherwell
Ljupcho Doriev – Sogdiana

Ilija Nestorovski – Ascoli
Milan Ristovski – Spartak
Bojan Miovski – Aberdeen
Aleksandar Trajkovski – no club
Dorian Babunski – Grasshoppers
Dimitar Mitrovski – Varaždin

The national team will gather on September 4th in Skopje. They will train in Skopje until the duel with Italy on September 9th at 20:45 CET at the National Arena Todor Proeski, while the following day the national team flies to Malta where on the 12th at 20:45 CET will face the outsiders in the group.

Past encounters:

vs. Italy (G3 W1 D1 L1 GD 4:4)
09.10.2016 2:3 defeat (match report) Q
06.10.2017 1:1 draw (match report) Q
24.03.2022 1:0 win (match report) PO

vs. Malta (G7 W6 D1 L0 GD 17:3)
27.03.1996 1:0 win (match report) F
27.11.1996 2:0 win (match report) F
06.09.1998 4:0 win (match report) Q
18.11.1998 2:1 win (match report) Q
21.08.2002 5:0 win (match report) F
11.08.2010 1:1 draw (match report) F
23.03.2023 2:1 win (match report) Q