North Macedonia-Ukraine is a match on the third day of Group C of Euro 2024 qualifying and is played on Friday at 20:45: predictions.
Italy, once their dreams of winning the Nations League vanished following their defeat to Spain, will certainly be watching this match carefully. Yes, because North Macedonia and Ukraine are the two selections that could give Roberto Mancini’s Azzurri a run for their money on their way to Euro 2024.
In Group C, in fact, England have already taken the lead and in the next two matches they could stay on full points, thus mortgaging the first place. For Italy, therefore, it will be interesting to see what the Ukraine, in theory the direct competitor for second place, will do: at the German European Championship, remember, the first two qualify directly. The adventure of the selection coached by former Dinamo Kiev striker Serhiy Rebrov has not started its qualifying campaign on the right foot, but the calendar has immediately put it in front of the English, who got the better of them 2-0 at Wembley last March. That is the only match so far played by Ukraine, which is still stuck on zero points together with Malta. In order to be prepared for the double-header with the North Africans and Maltese, Yarmolenko and his team-mates faced Germany in a friendly in Bremen on Monday. It ended in a pyrotechnic 3-3 draw, with Rebrov’s men being caught up in a thrilling finale after going 3-1 up.
Their performance was nevertheless a good one, especially offensively as in their last four official matches they had only scored against Armenia in the Nations League.
Miovski and Elmas
Beating North Macedonia would mean Ukraine joining Italy in the rankings, as well as the North Macedonians themselves. Who last March won 2-1 over Malta on their debut with an important success. Blagoja Milevski’s national team, now orphaned of its most representative player, Goran Pandev – the former Genoa player has hung up his boots – dreams of a second consecutive qualification after the historic one two years ago.
The prediction
Ukraine showed inspiration in their friendly against Germany, although they will not find the same spaces left by a careless and experimental German defence. The feeling is, however, that Rebrov’s men will be able to prevail and assert their technical superiority. We expect a match of at least one goal each.
The probable line-up for North Macedonia v Ukraine
- NORTH MACEDONIA (3-4-1-2): Dimitrievski; Velkovski, Zajkov, Musliu; Ristovski, Bardhi, Ademi, Alioski; Elmas; Nestorovski, Trajkovski.
- UCRAINE (4-4-2): Trubin; Tymchyk, Zabarnyi, Matvienko, Mykolenko; Tsygankov, Stepanenko, Sudakov, Mudryk; Yarmolenko, Dovbyk.
POSSIBLE RESULT: 1-2
