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Goran Pandev is the undisputed star of the team
Photo:
LUCA ZENNARO / EPA
Anyone who writes about football in North Macedonia writes about Goran Pandev.
That is a bit unfair, there are numerous foreign professionals in the team of the German World Cup qualifying opponent on Wednesday evening.
The players are under contract in England, in Spain or Italy - but in the end you end up with Goran Pandev again.
The Champions League winner, the record national player, the record goal scorer in the country.
No offense.
He made 116 international matches for North Macedonia and scored 36 goals, most of them when the country was still called Macedonia.
Until three years ago, in a complicated name dispute with neighboring Greece, an agreement was reached on the addition of North.
Since then, the selection has operated under the name of North Macedonia, and Pandev has played a key role in getting the general soccer public used to this name.
On November 12th of the previous year the big hour of North Macedonian football struck, in the playoffs for the European Championship qualification the team of coach Igor Angelovski won 1-0 against Georgia in the national stadium of Tbilisi, Pandev scored the goal of the day, who else?
Arrived at the top after ten years
The now 37-year-old has been living in Italy for 20 years. In 2001, as a teenager, he moved from his hometown club FK Belasica to the youth department of Inter Milan.
From the U19 of Inter to the professional team of Inter does not sound like a big jump, Pandev still needed ten years and various detours on the Italian boot.
La Spezia, Ancona, then at least Lazio Rome, only in January 2010 and at the age of 26 the time was finally ripe for Inter and Pandev.
The then coach in Lombardy was called José Mourinho, and there was probably no major coaching star in Europe at the time.
The Mourinho from back then, a power plant, an iconoclast, at that time his cynicism was still kept in check by his genius. Pandev said of him: "Every player wants a coach like him."
Pandev and Mourinho, that fit right from the start, although it only lasted six months.
But what a half a year: Inter became champions, won Coppa Italia, disenchanted FC Barcelona in the Champions League semi-final and dominated Louis van Gaal's final against Bayern.
Pandev was someone who was able to implement Mourinho's specifications perfectly.
In the summer, the coach said goodbye to Real Madrid and Pandev never found the shape of those six months again.
Football euphoria in handball country
The great time was a long time ago, more than a decade has passed since then, the leader of the North Macedonians is still the man from Strumica in the south-east of the country.
North Macedonia is actually a handball country, the RK Skopje club is one of the most successful teams in Europe, but Pandev has contributed to the fact that there is now something like football euphoria in the country with two million inhabitants.
The disaffection with football, it has not yet arrived in North Macedonia.
Prime Minister Zoran Zev set out to receive the winning team the night after the Georgia game.
The government, like everywhere else, also and especially in North Macedonia, likes to claim such sporting successes for itself.
The country is one of the economically backward regions of Europe, the number of unemployed, which has been over 20 percent for years, is only slowly falling.
The country has been a candidate for EU membership since 2005, and has remained so to this day.
In the pandemic, North Macedonia is making little progress with vaccination, most recently Macedonians were vaccinated by neighboring Serbia.
In comparison, the football selection is a success story, with the EM in the summer against the Netherlands, Austria and the Ukraine.
North Macedonia is just as an outsider there as it is in the German group of World Cup qualifiers.
But in contrast to the other opponents of the Löw-Elf, to the teams from Romania or Iceland, which are much better known to the public, Pandev and Co. are at the European Championship finals.
Seen in this way, North Macedonia is even the toughest chunk for the DFB selection.
Even if the first qualifying game in Romania was lost 2: 3, the second game against Liechtenstein 5: 0 was a matter of form.
North Macedonia is still one of the unknown countries in Europe, even after almost 30 years of independence, and the same applies to football.
National coach Joachim Löw told the press on Tuesday that he had now dealt with North Macedonia “a little” and that he had found that “they have been washed with all hands”.
Pandev has meanwhile arrived at CFC Genoa on his journey through Italy, it should be his last stop.
He has already planned his farewell game in North Macedonia for the autumn, and it should be the second leg against Germany in Skopje.
National coach Angelovski, however, has other plans, he would like to have the veteran with him at the World Cup in Qatar.
You have become self-confident in this small association.
So self-confident that Pandev, in his exuberance of emotions after the Georgia game, let himself be carried away to the sentence: "Now we will win the EM too."