THERE was no dream finale for North Macedonian hero Goran Pandev as he made his last hurrah for his country.
The 37-year-old, who is the top scorer in his country’s history, bowed out of international football as the Netherlands made it three wins from three at Euro 2020.
North Macedonia are heading home, but Frank de Boer’s Dutch outfit are now moving on to Budapest where they will face either of the third place finishers in groups D, E or F on June 27.
The Macedonian’s may have known their time at the European Championships was up before kick-off, but Igor Angelovski’s side were keen to go out fighting.
Inside 10 minutes they had the ball in the back of the net, but their lead was cancelled out due to the role of VAR. In the tightest of calls Ivan Trickovski was adjudged to have been in an offside position when he diverted a Pandev through ball past Maarten Stekelenburg in the Dutch goal.
Replays showed that that Trickovski was just a toenail offside, but North Macedonia continued to press as they aimed to take a shock lead.
Pandev was causing problems in the Netherlands defence, and he linked up well with fellow attacker Enis Bardhi on 21 minutes. Bardhi fed the striker before the former Inter Milan man produced a deft lay-off for Aleksandar Trajkovski.
Trajkovski smashed one towards goal, but unfortunately for him the ball collided with the post and was subsequently cleared.
The early missed chances came back to bite North Macedonia as the Netherlands took the lead on 24 minutes. The opener arrived via Memphis Depay as the former Manchester United man swept home an impressive counter attack, despite Macedonian appeals for a foul in the build-up.
A second half double from Gini Wijnaldum was to follow as the Netherlands comfortably secured top spot in Group C. Having just recently signed for PSG the former Liverpool man looked full of confidence as he waltzed into the box to finish off an impressive Depay assist.
Depay was again involved in Wijnaldum’s second as he took aim at goal before his shot was saved. Wijnaldum was alert to grab possession on the follow-up and fire home into the back of the net.
North Macedonia were the rank outsiders at this year’s tournament but they far from disgraced themselves with three decent showings in their group stage fixtures.
Their attacking style of football was easy on the eye and there is clearly a huge amount of team spirit within the camp.
That spirit was clear for all to see as the players formed a guard of honour as captain Pandev left the field of play on 68 minutes.
It was his strike that sent North Macedonia to their first major tournament and his place in football folklore is assured.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here