North Macedonia

The North Macedonia national football team (Macedonian: Фудбалска репрезентација на Северна Македонија, romanized: Fudbalska reprezentacija na Severna Makedonija; l) represents North Macedonia in men's international football, and is administered by the Football Federation of Macedonia. The team play their home matches at the Tose Proeski National Arena in Skopje.

North Macedonia have been rising in football in recent years, reaching Euro 2020, their first major tournament, and the European qualifying play-off final of the 2022 World Cup after defeating Italy in Palermo.

History

Between 1945 and 1991, SR Macedonia was ineligible to play as a team for official matches. The team had mostly played exhibition matches against teams from other republics of SFR Yugoslavia and was represented by Macedonian players under the traditional red, yellow and white colors.

Early years (1993–96)

In 1994, the Republic of Macedonia became a single member of FIFA and UEFA after the independence and split of the Yugoslavia. They recorded their first match as a 4–1 victory against Slovenia in a friendly on 13 October 1993 under coach Andon Doncevski.

They went on to win their next two friendlies against Slovenia and Estonia.

Euro 1996 qualifiers

The Euro '96 qualifiers was the first major qualifying tournament that Macedonia participated in as an independent nation, grouped with Spain, Denmark, Belgium, Cyprus and Armenia. In their opening game, which was also their first ever official match, Macedonia played the reigning European champions Denmark, finishing 1–1 after Macedonia led for most of the game. In Euro '96 qualifying, Macedonia suffered one of its worst-ever defeats, 5–0 to Belgium on 7 June 1995. They failed to qualify for Euro '96, finishing fourth in the group with seven points.

Hadzievski, Kanatlarovski and Jovanovski's era (1996–2001)

1998 World Cup qualifiers

This page also has a version in other languages :  Северная Македония (russian)