The young Macedonians took part on a U21 tournament in Antalya, Turkey. Three games were played against Latvia, Finland and Slovakia.

photo by FFM: the U21s celebrate after the game against Finland

Coach Dragi Kanatlarovski called up the following 23 players for the tests in Turkey:

Goalkeepers
Marko Alchevski, Vasko Vasilev and Ivan Nikoloski

Defenders
Andrej Stojchevski, Viktor Krstevski, Stefan Despotovski, Imran Fetai, Mihail Dimitrievsk and Mario Richkov

Midfielders
Ivan Nikolov, Reshat Ramadani, Hamza Ramani, Matej Angelov, Luka Stankovski and Dimitar Todorovski

Forwards
Martin Talakov, Behar Feta, Mario Ilievski, Vane Krstevski, Berat Kalkan, Leonid Ignatov, Metodi Maksimov and Hristijan Maleski

The first game was played against Latvia on the 23rd March. Macedonia lost 0:3 in a game in which the opponent didn’t dominate, but was way more effective. The second game on the 25th March against Finland ended 1:1 in the regular time, following was a penalty shootout which was won by the Lions. The goal in the regular time was scored by Berat Kalkan with a penalty shot. The last game was played on the 28th March against Slovakia and lost 0:1. Judging by the video there were several mistakes by the referee as in some situations it seemed that there should have been a penalty for Macedonia. After one of those decisions there were longer discussions on the pitch.

Macedonia wasn’t inferior in the games, the team looked compact defensively, but offensively the team has to be better to be competitive in the upcoming qualifications for the EC 2025 as not a lot quality chances were created, furthermore the finishing was bad. Good is that there will be another friendlies before the start of the qualifications.

Worth to mention is also that goalkeeper Marko Alchevski received a trophy as he was elected for the best goalie of the tournament. Stefan Despotovski earned a trophy for being the best midfielder, but that was a curiosity as he played all the games as a defender. Stefan was good in the games, but after that decision there was even laughter from the Macedonian side as everyone knew that in fact he played as a defender.