MacedonianFootball.com
Oct 6 2011
Armenia – Macedonia 4:1 .
Friday, 07 October 2011 18:35 Aleksandar Zlateski
Macedonia suffered a heavy 4:1 road defeat against Armenia after being
totally outplayed and finishing the game with 10 men once Velice
Sumulikoski was shown a red card.
A terrible performance by the Macedonian national team who finished
the game by playing in three different formations. Toshack began the
game with a 4-3-3, then moved to a 4-2-3-1 at the start of the 2nd
half, before shifting to a 3-4-2 shortly after Sumulikoski was shown a
red card. However, none of the formations worked as Armenia was
hungrier and recording the deserving victory.
Armenia created the first chance in the 9th minute when Yura Movsisyan
hit the outside of the post with a shot from the edge of the area.
Two minutes later, Macedonian striker Filip Ivanovski should have done
better on a cross from the right but his sliding attempt barely missed
the ball.
Macedonia did fine in the first 25 minutes and had more of the
possession but then Armenia took over, especially after they took the
lead in the 28th minute. Yura Movsisyan went past Nikolce Noveski
easily, then got away from a sliding challenge by Vance Sikov, before
setting up his teammate Marcos Pizzelli who scored an easy goal from
close range. Several minutes later, it was 2:0 for Armenia after the
Macedonian players failed to close down Henrik Mkhitaryan who had
space in front of him before unleashing a great shot that went past
the diving keeper Martin Bogatinov.
Seconds later, Ivan Trickovski had a chance on the other end but the
keeper closed him down well and Tricko’s effort went over the goal.
Just before halftime, Nikolce Noveski attempted a long range shot that
gave some problems to the Armenian keeper but the ball was eventually
cleared.
At the start of the 2nd half, Toshack did not like the 4-3-3 formation
so he replaced Muarem by bringing on Mario Gjurovski. That change
shifted the formation to a 4-2-3-1 just like in the matches last
month. Then, in the span of a minute, each team missed a good
opportunity. First, Mkhitaryan mishit a shot from a good position and
the ball went wide of the goal while going the other way, Filip
Ivanovski was through on goal but his finishing was poor as his effort
went over the goal.
Things only got worse in the 53rd minute when Velice Sumulikoski was
shown his second yellow card of the game for a bad foul, thus leading
to a red card. Sumulikoski refused to leave the pitch for a brief
moment and could be handed additional discipline after he had some
words for both the main referee and the 4th referee on his way to the
dressing room.
Macedonia was not into the game at this point and Armenia should have
scored another goal in the 57th minute but Mkhitaryan’s shot from a
good position was saved by Bogatinov. In the 69th minute, Armenia
scored the third goal when Gevorg Ghazaryan scored a goal from close
range after a good cross from the right by Yura Movsisyan. The cross
went just over Sikov before falling perfectly to Ghazaryan who did the
rest by scoring the goal.
Armenia was dominating at this stage as they had several more chances
but one shot took a slight deflection before grazing the post while
another shot went just inches wide of the left goal post. Yura
Movsisyan had a big chance in the 85th minute when he went around the
keeper but his touch was a tad long and the ball went out of play.
Vance Sikov scored a consolation goal for Macedonia in the 86th minute
when he used his size advantage to score with a header following a
corner kick from the right by Vlade Lazarevski. However, that was not
the last goal of the game as Igor Mitreski then made a lazy pass for
Nikolce Noveski in the 90th minute which was intercepted and it led to
an easy goal by striker Artur Sarkisov who went around Bogatinov
before scoring into the empty net. Not a good memory for Mitreski who
said he will retire after these two concluding games in EURO 2012
qualifying.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
