The  national team of Macedonia under 21, in an uncertain and exciting match, managed to win over Finland after the better execution of penalties, at the opening of the international control tournament "Antalya Cup 2023". In the regular 90 minutes, there was no winner, the result was 1:1 .

In the first part, we saw a very tough game, with a lot of fight, sacrifice and running on both sides. The opponent threatened several times after our goal, but Marko Alchevski was up to the task and intervened well. The most dangerous player in our team was the winger Berat Kalkan, who had several excellent penetrations on the left side. Our player crowned the good game with a penalty kick to give Macedonia the lead.

At the beginning of the second 45 minutes, Finland managed to equalize the score. Skita scored the goal. By the end of the match, we had a few more good opportunities, but we failed to convert. By far the best opportunity for Macedonia was Hamza Ramani, but his strong shot ended up wide of the goal.

After the penalty shootout, the chosen ones of the head coach Dragi Kanatlarovski managed to secure a triumph. Maleski, Krstevski, Nikolov, Feta and Fetai were safe from the penalty spot. Marko Alchevski was fantastic in our goal, who managed to save two penalties from the players of Finland.

In the second match of today's program, the national teams of Slovakia and Bulgaria are playing.

Macedonia: Marko Alchevski, Mario Richkov, Andrej Stojchevski, Imran Fetai, Stefan Despotovski, Berat Kalkan, Hamza Ramani, Reshat Ramadani, Vane Krstevski, Luka Stankovski, Mario Ilievski;

Reserves: Mihail Dimitrievski, Dimitar Todorovski, Martin Talakov, Ivan Nikoloski, Matej Angelov, Viktor Krstevski, Ivan Nikolov, Behar Feta, Leonid Ignatov, Vasko Vasilev, Hristian Maleski;

Head coach: Draghi Kanatlarovski;

Metodi Maksimov was not able to make himself available to the head coach Dragi Kanatlarovski due to an injury to his hamstrings at today's match.