The head coach of the North Macedonia national team, Blahoja Milevskyi: "Ukraine plays modern, attractive football regardless of the opponent"

03.01.2023 16:01

Photo by ffm.mk

The head coach of the North Macedonia national team, which is Ukraine's opponent in the Euro-2024 selection, spoke about his team's prospects in our group.

The coach of the North Macedonia national team, Blahoja Milevskii, summed up the results of 2022 and assessed the team's possibilities in qualifying for Euro-2024. About this the UEFA official website reports Football Federation of Northern Macedonia.

"Getting to a big tournament is the dream of every national team. The group we're in is hellishly tough, but at the same time it's a big challenge for all of us.

We beat Italy in Palermo, and this match was almost the most important for them in recent history, and after the failure with North Macedonia, the Italians missed the World Cup for the second time in a row. They will be extremely motivated to take revenge on us.

England is the topnational team, Gareth Southgate is doing a great job with an extremely talented squad. British have many players from the youth team and are now hungry for big wins. However, we must be prepared for what lies ahead.

Malta is a team that is constantly progressing and becoming more and more competitive. This is confirmed by her latest results.

Ukraine is a strong, big team. Ukrainians play modern attractive football regardless of the opponent. We saw this in the face-to-face match at the 2020 European Championship.

It should be clear to us that all opponents are already looking at North Macedonia through a different prism, trying to beat our team. But the footballers fought for this status and entry to the European Championship and played well in the qualifying matches for the World Cup - and especially the two play-off duels, with a victory over the reigning European champions Italy and the final match against Portugal.

Favorites are constantly changing, andplaying any match is not easy. We saw that even at the World Cup, very strong national teams did not live up to all expectations. In modern football, if we want to achieve the goal, it is necessary not only to be at the right level, but much more. 

It is important to me that everyone is healthy, although I understand that we cannot fully influence this. I constantly communicate with the players about their condition and form at the clubs. They know that only fully trained performers can be competitive. Throughout this period, we have built mutual trust and I think we have realized that the team is above everyone else and that we all have to be a team. We have to confirm this in the upcoming matches," said Blahoya Milevskyi.

We will remind, on October 9, the draw for the qualification of the European Championship 2024 took place in Frankfurt am Main, according to the results of which the national team of Ukraine have been drawn to group C, where he will meet Italy, England, North Macedonia and Malta. The Blue and Yellows will play North Macedonia away on June 16, and at home on October 14, 2023.