‘The biggest game in Shkëndija’s history’ – view from North Macedonia

On Thursday evening, we make our first-ever trip to North Macedonia as we take on KF Shkëndija in the Europa League third qualifying round – but what can we expect from the Tetovo-based outfit?

To find out more about Shkëndija, we spoke to Boris Paunovski of North Macedonia’s Antenna 5 Radio Network – a journalist who is well versed in the Balkan nation's footballing exploits, while he has also covered us since 2004.

Qualifying for the preliminary Europa League rounds via a third-place finish in the 2019/20 Macedonian First Football League, the Eastern European outfit advanced to this stage of the competition following wins over Azerbaijan’s Sumgayit and Romania’s Botosani in qualifying rounds one and two.

The Red and Blacks have reached this stage of the tournament twice before in their history and, on both occasions, they have progressed to the play-offs. So, Boris believes they will be eager to cause an ‘upset’ when we meet at the Toše Proeski Arena in Skopje on Thursday (7pm GMT kick-off).

“The challenge from Shkēndija will be that they will be hyped up to play at the best of their abilities,” Boris explained. “Only one team from North Macedonia has ever played in the group stages of a UEFA competition – that being the champions of the North Macedonian league, Vardar. Shkëndija are highly motivated, but they don’t have the quality to qualify for the group stages. They were the league champions in 2010 and then played in the UEFA Champions League qualifiers against Partizan Belgrade, but they lost 5-0 on aggregate. For them to score a goal on Thursday would be a very good thing for their CVs.

“The North Macedonian league is probably at the bottom of the UEFA rankings. Spurs have a UEFA co-efficient of 85,000, while Shkëndija’s is around 7,000 – the gulf in class is vast. They will want to cause an upset but first of all, I would say they’ll be looking to score a goal – just like Lokomotiv Plovdiv did in Spurs’ previous qualifier. It is going to be the biggest game in Shkëndija’s history because they're playing a Premier League team and a team that played in the Champions League Final just over a year ago. So, they’ll be motivated, but Spurs are the favourites.”

For Boris though, there will be something other than just the threat of our opposition that our squad will have to be wary of on Thursday evening.

Our third qualifying round encounter will take place at North Macedonia’s national stadium in the capital city of Skopje; a land-locked metropolis where temperatures are known to have reached a sweltering 45 degrees. And, this summer, searing heat has been an almost permanent fixture in the Balkans.

“Shkëndija are based in Tetovo, a small city outside of Skopje. Their stadium is not certified by UEFA to play European fixtures at, so they come to Skopje to play their games at the national stadium," Boris continued. “It’s where the UEFA Super Cup of 2017 was played – Jose Mourinho was the coach of Manchester United for that game and they played against Gareth Bale’s Real Madrid.

“Spurs will be the ninth British team to play here. For example, the England national team have been here twice. In the 1980s, Dundee United played here against Vardar, who are from Skopje, while Bolton and Liverpool have also been here. Scotland played North Macedonia here in September, 2013, and they said they had to take vitamins just to sustain the heat and play out the game.

“It’s been a tropical temperature all across the summer and the last rain we saw was a month ago. The temperature is about 30 degrees, so it is going to be very, very hot - not at all like London.”