A lone goal by Filip Petkovski was enough for Vardar to celebrate a win over Pelister in the Macedonian derby.
For a second time this season Vardar is victorious in the Derby of Macedonia. In the very first round of this season the Red&Black beat the Green&White in Bitola with 1:0 and today they celebrated with the same results, but in Skopje. The game was moved to the Gjorche Petrov stadium as the grass at the National Arena Philip II of Macedon is currently being repaired because the national team will host Luxembourg on Thursday in the 2016 EURO qualifications. Philip II is home of Vardar but the club doesn’t own the stadium and only rents it so Vardar had to look for other ground to host the big derby. After choosing the Gjorche Petrov stadium that has only one stand for fans and an additional much smaller one for VIPs and journalists, the Football Federation decided that the derby will be without away fans due to the fact that they can’t be in a same stand with the home fans. That decision was very bitterly received by both Vardar and Pelister fans. The popular Komiti were insulting FFM throughout the first half and therefore the game was interrupted by main referee Dejan Jakimovski in the 23rd minute. Near the end of the first half surprisingly the Komiti were joined by the Chkembari and together expressed their displeasure towards the FFM. This was the first time in the Macedonian First League that Vardar and Pelister fans were together in a same stand and not fighting. The home team scored the winning goal in the 5th minute of the injury time in the first half when Petkovski headed the ball in Pelister’s goal after a great cross by Ljamchevski.
In the second half the derby continued without any fans as both Komiti and Chkembari left the match in protest. Vardar controlled the game not allowing Pelister to create any serious chance for levelling the score. The derby ended with a 1:0 win, a derby that will quickly be forgotten, played in a small stadium with no fans in the second half. This was definitely one the worst derbies between the two sides in their long history, if even the worst. One interesting fact was the Ljamchevski brothers playing against each other: Blagoja played for Vardar and assisted for the winning goal, while his younger brother Petar played for Pelister.
Gjorche Petrov stadium in Skopje
Vardar – Pelister 1:0 (1:0)
Goalscorer: 45’+5 Petkovski
Vardar: Igor Pavlović; Blagoja Ljamchevski, Boban Grncharov, Zlatko Tanevski, Hovhannes Hambardzumyan; Artak Dashyan, Filip Despotovski, Vlatko Grozdanoski (75′ Artur Miranyan), Nikola Gligorov, Jasir Asani (65′ Dimitar Ivanov); Filip Petkovski (80′ Filip Ivanovski).
Pelister: Goran Pashovski; Vladica Brdarovski, Aleksandar Krsteski, Metodija Stepanovski, Goran Ganchev; Burhan Mustafov (84′ Dejan Glavevski), Petar Ljamchevski (46′ Goce Todorovski), Dimche Ristevski (68′ Martin Mirchevski), Aleksandar Anastasov, Mile Petkovski; Boško Stupić.
Referee: Dejan Jakimovski
Yellow cards: Stepanovski (P)
Red cards: /
The rest of the games of Round 10 are scheduled for Sunday at 15.00 CET.