[ad_1]
sports
Reuters
The North Macedonia national team achieved a historic achievement by qualifying for the first time in the final phase of the European Cup of Nations “Euro 2020”, after beating their Georgian counterpart (1-0) on Thursday, in the play-off final.
North Macedonia owes its victory and historic achievement to veteran forward Goran Pandev (37), who scored his only winning goal of 56, following a “spectacular” coordinated attack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJzicvBa4hk
Goran Pandev, current Italian Genoa player and former Inter Milan and Lazio player, has previously stated his intention to retire after the end of the current season and participate in the “Euro 2020” tournament, which was postponed to the summer of 2021 , and it will be the best ending of his long career.
North Macedonia has made its way to “Euro 2020” through the new competition supplement, the European Nations League, after participating in the fourth ranking of the version (2018-2019) and occupying the top of the ranking of the fourth group .
Macedonia benefited from one-match play-off matches, beating Bosnia and Herzegovina (2-1) and then Georgia in the final stage, due to the Corona virus outbreak, after it was scheduled to keep it in a system back and forth.
North Macedonia will play in Group C of the final phase of “Euro 2020”, together with the Netherlands, Ukraine and Austria.
Thus, the European Cup of Nations “Euro 2020” will feature the participation of two teams that did not pre-qualify for the competition, namely North Macedonia and Finland.
Six teams are vying for the last three seats, and their matches will also take place later in the day. Hungary will face Iceland, Northern Ireland against Slovakia and Serbia against Scotland.
It should be noted that Skopje (the capital of Macedonia) signed an agreement with Athens (the capital of Greece) last June, to change the name of the Republic of Macedonia to “Republic of North Macedonia”, which ended a decades-long conflict between the two countries and sparked protests on both sides of the border between them.
After Macedonia’s independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991, Greece refused to adopt the name of its new neighbor, the state. Greece, which includes a region called Macedonia, says that the name of its neighbor (Macedonia) signifies a claim to sovereignty over Greek territory.
Source: Agencies
[ad_2]
