Macedonian team has looked very strong at the last couple of tournaments, but always needed just a bit of luck to reach a big result. Could this be the year they finally make a big step forward?

Macedonian team was drawn in Group B, along side Croatia, Spain, Iceland, Bahrain and Japan. It looks like it may be the toughest group in the entire tournament, but Macedonia definitely has the potential to reach the main round. After finishing 11th at the EHF EURO 2018 in Croatia, Macedonia will look for a better result this January in Germany and Denmark. 

Macedonia’s best result at the World Championship came in 2015 in Qatar, when they finished 9th. Since 2013, they qualified for Last 16 at every World Championship, which means the Gonzalez’s team will definitely need at least the same result. Playing in Munich, no doubt they will enjoy a lot of support from their fans. 

At the moment, their list features 20 players, and a lot of them play in SEHA – Gazprom League, but many have also played before. Metalurg have three players on the roster, including:  Milan Lazarevski, Martin Serafimov and Mario Tankoski. If it weren’t for the injury, we would have probably seen Martin Velkovski in that team. Vardar’s two players are: Stojanche Stoilov and Martin Popovski. Head coach Raul Gonzalez will be assisted by Roberto Garcia Parrondo, which means Vardar’s former coach will be helped by their current one. 

Their key player will be Kiril Lazarov, who plays for Nantes, and also defends the top scorer title from France 2017. However, other stars, who have experience in SEHA – Gazprom League might be Filip Kuzmanovski, Dejan Manaskov, Zarko Peshevski and Filip Taleski. 

We look forward to seeing Macedonia in action at the World Championship in 2019, and of course wish good luck to SEHA players in their team!