With a bad performance, especially in the first half and big mistakes by the defence, the Macedonian Under 21 national team started the European U21 Championship qualifications with a 3:1 defeat away to Greece.

Greece U21 – Macedonia U21 3:1 (1:0)
7' 49' Mitroglou, 61' Ioannidis – 50' Fazli

Greece U21: Stratilatis, Argyriou(64' Tachtsidis), Siovas, Papazoglou, Boukouvalas, Ninis(81' Lambropoulos), Papadopoulos, Pliatsikas(58' Dimoutsos), Siakas, Ioannidis, Mitroglou.

Macedonia U21: Naumovski, Georgievski, Lostovski, Blazevski(57' Najdovski), Selmani, Simovski, Gjeorgiev(45' Velkoski), Stojkov, Ibraimi, Fazli, Ivanovski(72' Kostencovski).

The Greek side made pressure from the beginning of the match. The first chance came in the 3rd minute when Pliatskikas shot from the right side but the ball went close to the goal. In the 7th minute a through ball was sent forward to Mitroglou and after Macedonian defender Blazevski made a big mistake and failed to control that ball, Olympiakos' striker Kostas Mitroglou came out in front of Naumovski and placed the ball in the net with a shot from 16 meters. Only two minutes later, Mitrouglou assisted Ninis who failed to score.
The Greek squad controlled the match and kept Macedonian players away from their goal, so Macedonia failed to create a single scoring chance in the first half. Greece continued attacking and had few more chances to double the lead and had two disallowed goals in the 28th and 42nd minute because of hand play and offside. In the last minute of the first half, Mitrouglou had another big chance but his shot from close range from the left side was blocked after Naumovski's great save.

Right on the start of the second half, another mistake by our defence and Pliatsikas easily passed by Lostovski and assisted to Mitroglou who scored his second goal. But this goal was an awekening moment for the Macedonian team and with a quick reply on the other side, Samir Fazli got through Greek defence and scored great goal for lowering the lead.
The goal by Fazli gave motivation to Macedonian players who played good and made pressure towards the Greek goal, but this only lasted for ten minutes. In the 61st minute, Macedonian defence again failed to do their job so Ioannidis didn't find it hard to score the third goal for Greece.
After securing the big lead, Greece lowered the pace and controlled the match. Few more chances were created in front of Macedonian goal, but the goalkeeper Naumovski was more successful then Greek strikers and the match ended with a deserved 3:1 win for Greece.