ALMOST anything east of the dismantled Iron Curtain these days constitutes an unknown quantity, and in so much as one can ascertain anything about the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, these boys look as if they could be tricky.
Look into the dark, unrevealing eyes of their friendly, if cagey, 51 year old coach Dokica Hadzievski, aka Gjoko, and he says intently: "Yes, we are a very proud country."
Good naturedly, he plays down his team's chances. The game at home is underfinanced, and their four year old, 14 club first division contains only three teams from what was the Yugoslavian top flight. But there's no such thing as a technically inefficient Yugoslavian player, be they former or present, and already the Macedonians are following the nomadic ways of the region, with seven of the 18 man squad based abroad.
The total would have been nine but for untimely injuries to their best known player, the 31 year old former Red Star and Inter Milan striker Darko Pancev (ankle), and the hugely regarded 22 year old defender Mitko Stojkovski.
But they are an emerging, talented bunch, with some experienced personnel. The defender. Ilija Najdoski, was a teammate of Pancev's (and has now linked up with him captain at Sion) when he captained Red Star to the European Cup and World Club Cup double.
Around him is much youthful promise, including the sweeper Igor Sasa Nikoloski (22), who plays with Antwerp, and another highly regarded, 22 year old defender, Goce Sedloski, of Hajduk Split. The midfield is buttressed by players based in Germany, Denmark and Spain, while up front Pancev's successor in waiting is Partizan Belgrade's Gorgi Hristov.
For all his modesty, false or true, Gjoko admits: "I can be honest and say we have very talented players. Maybe not so experienced, but they are players with potential."
Judging by a 3-0 home win over Liechtenstein and a 1-1 draw away to Iceland. potentially, in fact, they could be the Republic of Ireland's second most difficult assignment, after Romania, in Group Fight.
Yet another of these fledgling independent states (population 2.2 mill on) who only came into being as a competitive footballing entity in the last European Championship qualifying campaign, the Macedonians have already put together some respectable results.
Aside from draws with Denmark (at home) and Belgium (away) in that qualifying campaign, they have beaten Cyprus (3-0), Estonia (2-0) and Albania (5-0). Aside from their two qualifying ties, this year they have beaten Malta (1-0) and lost away to Bulgaria (0-3).
Four months of inactivity however, since the draw in Iceland pinpoints their biggest difficulty. "Our big problem is to bring them together, because we have so many players based internationally, especially for this match," conceded Gjoko.
Nonetheless, Gjoko prefers his players to move abroad and acquire more experience, even if it poses certain problems for him which are compounded by financial concerns.
"We are not a very rich country. We don't have much money to make our game better at club level and so most of our better players go out of Macedonia. Our championship is not so good. In my opinion we are better than Liechtenstein and we are very close with Iceland and Lithuania. This is our real place," he maintains, though the suspicion lurks that they may be the best of the quartet.
Thus, perhaps engaging in some pre match psychological gamesmanship, Gjoko sides with conventional wisdom when saying the draw has been kind to the Irish. "The Republic of Ireland has a much more experienced team than us, with more tradition, much better organisation, more spectators in the stadium, better conditions and, in the end, more famous players.
"You have a big chance to reach the finals in France, a good chance with Macedonia. This is a very, very big chance. There is only one real competitor, Romania, who are maybe the best team. They still have many good players. Maybe this is their moment to make a new team with many talented players."
The former CSKA Sofia coach, who is in his second spell as Macedonian coach after a relatively undistinguished playing career with three Macedonian clubs (though Vardar Skopje were in the Yugoslavian first division), would not concede that his team were also meeting a transitional Irish side.
"It's very difficult to say we have a big chance with Ireland. We will wait for some chances, honestly. Nobody can play and think about losing. We have to be positive, and have strong hope and motivation in the match."
