North Macedonia
The Macedonian national team will play at the European Championship for the first time in their history. With the success achieved in the qualifications for CEV EuroVolley 2019, the group could eventually fulfill the wishes of several generations of Volleyball players that have worn the red and yellow jersey.
Nikola Matijasevic“We expected that at the beginning of the preparations in June the players would be out of shape. My idea was to check the youngsters and call them for the main training phase, so that they can be an option for the European Championship. It is still too early to think about the opponents. I want to work on our game, and we will do the analysis of our opponents afterwards because some of them played with a different roster in the European League than they will choose for the European Championship
Head Coach of North Macedonia
The current team led by Nikola Gjorgiev finished as runners-up in three consecutive editions of the European League (2015, 2016 and 2017). In addition to these silver medals, winning bronze in the same competition in 2014 is one of the major successes of a national team that has not yet participated in major international tournaments such as World Championships or the Olympics.
Hence, the whole country is awaiting with much curiosity and impatience for North Macedonia to make their maiden EuroVolley appearance later this summer.
Nikola Gjorgiev“I think that the first match of the European Championship for us will be ‘the final before the final’. Finland will give us some indications about our performance in Ljubljana. As rookies, we need to play without pressure, but we have qualified for the European Championship and we deserve to be there. We need to be on the European stage more often, to make it more of a routine and only then we will be able to think about qualifying for the knockout phase."
Captain of North Macedonia
