Filip Mishov’s Austria v North Macedonia preview: Pandev and co. could sneak win

Our Matchday Squad journalist will be covering North Macedonia throughout Euro 2020

After the strong performances in the friendly matches against Slovenia (1-1) and Kazakhstan (4-0) at the national arena ‘Toshe Proeski’ in Skopje, Macedonia is impatiently counting down the final hours till its debut match at the Euros.

The coach, Igor Angelovski has at his disposal his strongest squad apart from the injured striker, Ilija Nestorovski, who ruptured his ACL in training for the Italian side Udinese in April. The Macedonian tactician will deploy the counter-attacking formation 3-5-2 and the boys will look for their chances through the extremely talented playmaker, Elif Elmas and his legendary mentor, Goran Pandev.

Austria and Macedonia are no strangers to each other as they faced in the Euro qualifiers with ‘Das Team’ winning both matches, but a lot has changed since 2019. The Macedonia national team has developed greatly and is going with full confidence and nothing to lose at the Euros.

Macedonia won’t hold back against any opponent in Group C, but the matches against Austria and Ukraine are the ones which hold the key to securing a place in the knockout stages of the tournament. Angelovski is looking for a debut win from the very start and I expect a tight match with (hopefully) Macedonia coming out as a winner with Pandev scoring.

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