A Spanish coach for FYR Macedonia’s men's national team

One month out of the next challenges in the Men's EHF EURO 2018 Qualification, the Macedonian Handball Federation has named a new head coach for its men's national team.

Spaniard Raul Gonzales, the current coach of VELUX EHF Champions League participants HC Vardar, will take over the team with immediate effect. The position had been vacant for a couple of weeks after previous head coach Lino Cervar resigned to take over the Croatian national team.

"I'm proud to be the new Macedonian head coach. We will start working straight away and I'll give everything as usual," Gonzales said at his presentation on Friday.

"I think adapting to the new role will be easy as I'm already based in Skopje. I'll talk to the players in the coming weeks and I think we'll be ready for the upcoming challenges."

Gonzales will make his debut on 4 May in the EHF EURO qualifier against Iceland. To date, FYR Macedonia have played against Ukraine and Czech Republic, winning against the former and losing against the latter.  

"I have enormous confidence in the new coach. Our main goal is to qualify for the 2018 European Championships in Croatia," said the federation's president, Zivko Mukaetov, to macedoniaonline.eu.