Macedonia have to win and keep their fingers crossed for Spain

The last two qualification rounds for the Men's EHF EURO 2014 in Denmark are crucial for FYR Macedonia, if they want to play at their third major handball tournament in just two years following the participation at the EHF EURO 2012 and the 2013 World Championship.

Their first rivals will be Switzerland on June 12 in Zurich and four days later they will meet Portugal in Skopje. Spain have already secured the top spot in group 1, and Portugal with 5 points and FYR Macedonia (2 points) are the contenders for the second rank.

"We are fully focused on the match against Switzerland. This is most important game for us. After that game we will start thinking about Portugal," says Ivica Obrvan, head coach of FYR Macedonia.

His team needs two wins from the last two games, while for Portugal one point from the match against Spain could potentially already be enough.

"We need two wins from two matches and hope that Spain will win against Portugal. Both duels for us will be difficult because in our team we have injured players. But we must achieve our goal which is a spot at the final tournament in Denmark. Simply, we need to do this for the good of the Macedonian handball," says line player Stojanche Stoilov.

Due to injuries, Ivica Obrvan has to replace some of his usual stalwarts. Besides Dejan Manaskov who has a knee injury and has not been playing for a long time, the list of the injured has now been joined by right wing Goce Georgievski who has a broken his right hand and goalkeeper Peter Angelov.

Furthermore Naumce Mojsovski and Fhilip Mirkulovski, the two HC Metalurg back court players, are feeling the pain after a draining season that included matches in the SEHA League, the VELUX EHF Champions League, the domestic championship and for the national team.

Mojsovski was already sidelined for a weeks in May and could be out againt, while Mirkulovski is expected to take to the court.

The Macedonian squad for the last two EHF EURO 2014 qualification matches:

Goalkeepers: Nikola Mitrevski (Metalurg), Zlatko Daskalovski, Gradimir Canevski (both from Vardar), Borko Ristovski (VfL Gummersbach, GER).

Wingers: Vlado Nedanovski (Vardar), Stefce Alushovski (Metalurg), Vladimir Temelkov (Basharage, LUX), Zlatko Mojsovski (Metalurg)

Back players: Naumce Mojsovski, Aco Jonoski, Velko Markoski, Filip Mirkulovski, Milan Levov (all from Metalurg), Filip Lazarov (Vardar), Goran Kuzmanovski (Odorheiu, ROM), Branislav Angelovski (Constanta, ROM), Nikola Stojcevski (Tunis), Kiril Lazarov (Atletiko Madrid, ESP)

Line players: Stojance Stoilov (Vardar), Nikola Markoski (Vardar), Vanco Dimovski (Metalurg).