Bitter end of the 2020/21 edition of the Nations League for Macedonia as in the last round was missed the planned promotion to League B.
photo by Igor Panevski/FFM: Trichkovski tries a bicycle kick during the match
Macedonia made it to the EURO, but stays among the worse half of European national football teams. Today on neutral field in Nicosia the Lynx got defeated by a lone goal by Armenia so they end up as runners-up on the standing, since this was the last round.
National team coach Igor Angelovski had many problems with the squad as most of the good players were unavailable for this match. Kire Ristevski is still in isolation due to COVID-19 (although his last test was negative), Arijan Ademi, Ezgjan Alioski, Enis Bardhi and Elif Elmas got injured, Boban Nikolov and Stefan Spirovski had to serve a yellow card suspension, Stole Dimitrievski had red card suspension, while Goran Pandev was given a rest right after winning the play-off.
Despite all those problems Macedonia was a bit better in the opening 45 minutes and several times threatened David Yurchenko’s goal. Most engaged was Aleksandar Trajkovski, but mostly he was trying from long distance.
The lone goal came 10 minutes after the break when the right flank was left unmarked. Former Vardar wing back Hovhannes Hambardzunyan was well served and as he was left alone striker Vlatko Stojanovski was chasing him, but failed. Hambardzunyan fired a tricky shot past Damjan Shishkovski and despite Gjoko Zajkov and Visar Musliu tried to clear before the line, both failed.
After the goal the Macedonians failed to recover and create a serious chance. Missing dept at the bench was additional problem for Angelovski and once again his stubbornness not to summon more player from the start came on surface, this time hitting back hard.
In the other match in our group Georgia and Estonia played a goalless draw. That means that Armenia is promoted to League B, Macedonia and Georgia will stray in League C for next season, while Estonia will enter a relegation play-off with the other League C bottom-placed teams.
Failing to will the group Macedonia and missed a chance to potentially enter the play-off for 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.