All 51,700 highly priced tickets for Ireland v North Macedonia on Tuesday sold out weeks ago to supporters desperately hoping that the fixture would never take place.
However, such apathy towards the visitors is nothing new. When Ireland were drawn in the same qualifying group as Macedonia for World Cup 1998 the immediate reaction of manager Jack Charlton live on RTÉ television was to ask “Where’s that?”.
In April 1997 Ireland belatedly discovered where Macedonia was – a decision they would quickly come to regret. Visiting the capital Skopje for a World Cup qualifier Ireland wore a bright orange kit and imploded so spectacularly that one of the team ended up paying for stadium repairs.
Ireland took an early lead through Alan McLoughlin, but Macedonia recovered to win 3-2, with Jason McAteer being shown a last-minute red card for a wild kung-fu kick into the chest of Artim Sakiri. Sadly, McAteer had not yet finished with karate for the evening. Discovering that the away dressingroom was still locked McAteer kicked a huge hole in the plywood door, in which he promptly got his foot stuck.
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In his autobiography McAteer recalled: “A few weeks later I got the bill from Fifa for the door and I’ve no choice but to pay it.” So disastrous was the Irish display that afterwards the worst player in training would be required to wear a yellow jersey with “I Had a Macedonia” written on it.
Ireland returned to Skopje in October 1999 and were 10 seconds away from securing automatic qualification for Euro 2000 until an injury-time header from Goran Stavrevski salvaged a 1-1 draw for Macedonia.
One man who played in both of those matches against Ireland was defender Goce Sedloski, who was appointed manager of North Macedonia last December and remains in charge of FK Vardar, who top the Macedonian First League.
[ Now for North Macedonia: Why you should go to Ireland’s least enticing home friendly ever ]
In 1998 Sedloski joined Sheffield Wednesday, but only managed to play a handful of Premier League games. Sedloski was a long-serving captain of Macedonia before retiring in 2010 as the first player to earn 100 caps for the national team. He last visited Dublin in August 2022 as manager of Shkupi, who lost 3-1 to Shamrock Rovers in the first leg of the Europa League third qualifying round. A week later the Hoops won the return 2-1 to progress 5-2 on aggregate.
Sedloski might struggle to improve on that result on Tuesday as Macedonia have lost all three previous matches against Ireland at Lansdowne Road, only scoring once.
The most recent meeting of Irish and North Macedonian teams in European club competitions came last September when a stoppage-time own goal by Paddy Barrett saw Shelbourne lose 1-0 away to Shkendija in the Europa Conference League group stage.
In 2000 Shelbourne won 1-0 against the now-defunct Sloga Jugomagnat in the Champions League qualifiers, securing the first away victory by a League of Ireland side in a European tie for 18 years.
The only North Macedonian to play in the League of Ireland was Daniel Krezic, who spent a season at Cork City. Krezic’s sole goal for Cork City was a late winner in a 2-1 victory over Bohemians at Turners Cross in June 2023.
North Macedonia have several excellent players including goalkeeper Stole Dimitrievski at Valencia, captain Enis Bardhi at Konyaspor and Ezgjan Alioski who spent five successful seasons at Leeds United and now plays for Lugano. However, their outstanding talent remains Eljif Elmas, who in 2017 made his senior international debut in a World Cup qualifier against Spain aged 17.
Elmas was recently linked with a move to Manchester United after performing so well for Napoli that head coach Antonio Conte proclaimed: “This year we should build a statue of Eljif Elmas. He understands football.” In March 2021 Elmas scored the winning goal for North Macedonia in their 2-1 victory over Germany in a World Cup qualifier in Duisburg.
One player who will not feature in Dublin is Glasgow Rangers striker Bojan Miovski, who was released from the North Macedonia squad after expressing his frustration at not starting last week’s 4-0 World Cup play-off defeat to Denmark.
Historically, Macedonia had very little chance of qualifying for a major tournament until Uefa introduced the Nations League, which controversially reserved a qualification spot for one of the continent’s weakest nations competing in League D. For Euro 2020 Macedonia proved to be the best of the worst, securing a historic first qualification by beating Georgia 1-0.
The winning goal was scored by 37-year-old Goran Pandev, who is seven years older than the country he represented. Pandev’s 38 international goals in 122 caps are both national records and he was an integral part of José Mourinho’s treble-winning Inter Milan side in 2010.
Pandev’s 20-year international career ended emotionally when he was substituted in North Macedonia’s last Euro 2020 group stage match against the Netherlands and was given a guard of honour by his team-mates as he left the field.
Pandev is now the sports director of the North Macedonian FA and is the founder and president of his own club, Brera Strumica FC. Pandev’s only real competitor for the title of Macedonia’s greatest player is Darko Pancev, who scored the winning penalty for Red Star Belgrade in the 1991 European Cup Final against Marseille.
