When it comes to the impression of "Macedonia", most people probably think of the distant Alexander Empire first. Or the complex geopolitics of the Balkan Peninsula, the "powder keg of the world", an empire that spans Europe, Asia and Africa, and is one of the witnesses to Europe's glorious ancient history.
Today, North Macedonia is making the world known through football. They made new history by eliminating Italy in the World Cup play-offs, only ninety minutes away from the World Cup.
Text / Liu He
Editor / Xue Yinbo, Yin Haonan
01
Epic victory to eliminate Italy
Since the North Macedonian national team began competing internationally in 1992, North Macedonia has not been able to qualify for the finals of the World Series until Euro 2021.
However, in the 2018/19 season, North Macedonia finished first in the group in the UEFA Nations League D-Class D and was given the opportunity to play in the Europa League play-offs. Then in the play-off final, veteran Penderv scored the only goal of the game, helping North Macedonia to reach the European Championship for the first time in history.
North Macedonian legendary star Pendev
Football has built the best stage for small countries and stars. For example, fans may not know who the current president of Uruguay is, but they will know Luis Suarez. After his historic european finale, Sedini, president of the North Macedonian Football Association, also proudly said: "We no longer need to explain to people that North Macedonia is a small country bordering Serbia, Albania, Bulgaria and Greece."
However, North Macedonia's first Trip to the World Series was like a traditional Fish belly team, without much surprise – losing consecutively to Austria, Ukraine and the Netherlands, conceding 8 goals in 3 games and scoring 0 points. But for North Macedonia, to appear at a tournament like the European Cup is already a great victory.
North Macedonia national team at Euro 2021
In the 2022 FIFA World Cup European Qualifiers, North Macedonia was placed in Group J – against Germany, Romania, Armenia, Iceland and Liechtenstein. With the exception of Germany, Iceland has made it to the 2018 World Cup, with Romania ranking between 40-50 in the world.
Therefore, it is not easy for North Macedonia to get the second group in Group J. However, for this group of North Macedonian players with great dreams, they are not only satisfied with "participating in the European Championship" - the goal of this world preliminary round is to reach the final round of the World Cup and make the north Macedonian name on the brightest stage in world football.
In the European Qualifiers, North Macedonia finished second with 18 points in Group J, beating Romania to qualify for the play-offs with a one-point advantage. It is worth mentioning that North Macedonia's 2-1 away victory over Germany in Duisburg last year gave the former world championship qualifier the only defeat and the first time the German national team has lost the World Preliminary Tournament in 20 years.
It was this precious victory that allowed North Macedonia to gain second place in the group and reach the play-offs.
North Macedonia beat Germany 2-1 in the group stage
The experience of North Macedonia is even more legendary. In the first round of the play-offs, North Macedonia shocked the world and eliminated the new European Champions - making the historic Italy miss the World Cup for two consecutive times.
At 2:45 a.m. Beijing time on March 30, North Macedonia played against Portugal, led by Cristiano Ronaldo. Before the start of the tournament, North Macedonia, with a national population of only 2 million, was obviously not a favorite to qualify, but because of the elimination of European champions Italy, many fans began to believe that this traditional weak team may continue to create miracles, and could not help but sweat for Ronaldo's last World Cup trip.
However, the difference in strength between the two sides is still obvious, and in the end, Portugal won 2-0 against North Macedonia, and with the victory of this game, Portugal successfully qualified for the final round of the World Cup in Qatar.
The miracle did not happen again, but compared to the 2018 World Cup qualifiers, which ranked second to the bottom of Group G, only the record of double-killed "famous fish belly" Liechtenstein and the victory over Israel by 1 game, after entering the play-offs this year, the players of North Macedonia are creating their own history with every extra step.
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Past and present lives in North Macedonia
The Republic of North Macedonia, one of the former Yugoslav republics, declared its independence after the dissolution of Yugoslavia. The state name was proclaimed as the "Republic of Masston", but it was firmly opposed by its southern neighbor Greece.
The Greeks believe that North Macedonia, dominated by the Slavs, is not a descendant of ancient Macedonia, and the real descendants of ancient Macedonia are all in Aegean Macedonia in Greece.
Macedonia believes that although they are not ancient Macedonians, they should all live in the region as a Macedonian nation, and they have the right to inherit the history of the region. According to United Nations regulations, it is impossible for an emerging country to join the United Nations if it is not recognized by its neighbours.
As a result, North Malaysia has not joined the United Nations since its independence from Yugoslavia. After nearly 30 years of consultations, the two countries each took a step back, and in 2019 the "Republic of Macedonia" was renamed the "Republic of North Macedonia". And acknowledged that there would never be a territorial claim to the Greek region of Aegean Macedonia.
Map of North Macedonia
Today's North Macedonia, a parliamentary republic with a population of 2.08 million, the total GDP of North Macedonia in 2019 was 12.695 billion US dollars, and the per capita GDP of North Macedonia in 2019 was 6093.15 US dollars, ranking 89th in the world, and the proportion of poor people is still high, and the World Bank's 2018 data is still more than 21.5%.
Therefore, the Prime Minister of North Macedonia promised that if North Macedonia beat Portugal to get a World Cup ticket, each player would receive a prize of 500,000 euros, which can be said to be an extremely generous reward compared to North Macedonia's per capita GDP.
Proportion of people living in poverty in North Macedonia (Image: World Bank)
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The road to football development in North Macedonia
From Iceland, which has a population of only 400,000, to the Elimination of the European Champions in North Macedonia, which "survives in the cracks", we can find that politics, economy and population cannot completely determine the strength and weakness of football, and finding a development path suitable for oneself is the unchangeable truth.
At the national team level, through the national football strategy and the introduction of diversified players, the cornerstone of the outstanding performance of the North Malaysia national team has been laid. Since the introduction of the national football strategy in North Macedonia, the national team performance has improved all the way, and the excellent national team results have also provided an example for more youth players.
In 2017, for the first time in the history of the North Macedonia U21 national team, it broke into the European U-21 Football Championship, becoming the first national team in the country's history to participate in a major competition; in 2020, the North Macedonian national team reached the final round of the European Championship, petar Miloshevski National Training Center, which trained four members of the national team for North Macedonia to participate in Euro 2020.
At the same time, the North Macedonian Football Association also attaches great importance to the development of women's football, with a strong emphasis on women's participation in football, and they have developed a separate strategy for women's football and its development.
In addition, the FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION has been actively involved in the introduction of multi-ethnic players with a North Macedonian background. Today, the most expensive star in the North Macedonian national team is Eljif Elmas, born in 1999, who now plays for Napoli and has Turkic parents.
Ennis Baldi, who plays for La Liga, is ethnic Albanian. The complex history has led to constant contradictions between the various ethnic groups in North Macedonia, but football is one of the few elements that unite the people of North Macedonia.
Erjiv Hermas
Although the national team has been advancing all the way, the professional football ecological environment in North Macedonia still needs to be improved.
So far, North Macedonia has a total of four leagues, as the highest level league in the country, the North Macedonian First League, UEFA ranks 48th in points, only one place higher than Liechtenstein in North Macedonia. It is even far from neighboring Serbia (11th) and Greece (15th).
In addition, the original league originally had 18 teams, and then due to various financial problems and disbanded, the North Macedonian First Division now has only 12 teams left, the league champion can enter the first round of the Champions League qualification round, the second and third place teams and the Macedonian Cup champions enter the first round of the Europa League qualification, but no team has yet entered the Champions League stage, only Varda Club has entered the Europa League group stage.
UEFA standings this season
However, the national team has made the best example for local players, and legendary stars such as Penderv are also sparing no effort to support the development of local football. This time, they are only 90 minutes away from the World Cup. And after the expansion of the world cup in the future, we can look forward to the day when the melody of "Today above Macedonia" will be played on the World Cup field.