Germany 1-2 North Macedonia: Serie A stars Pandev, Elmas sink Germany to a shock defeat

Timo Werner-Germany

Joachim Low’s side were stunned by minnows North Macedonia.

Germany have lost 1-2 to 65th ranked North Macedonia as they slipped to the third place of their group in the World Cup Qualifiers.

The Germans were coming off a narrow win against Romania days ago and also deemed the favourites. But a well-disciplined North Macedonian side made life difficult for the Germans.

Goran Pandev, the veteran striker from Genoa, put the visitors ahead after he was left unmarked in the box to score in the added minutes of the first half.

Manchester City midfielder Ilkay Gundogan put Germany on the level terms but it was Macedonia who had the last laugh.

Eljif Elmas, a midfielder from Napoli, stunned the 2014 World Cup winners with a late goal, which also concluded a dream night for Macedonians.

Germany had the upper hand in terms of possession but were lacklustre in the attacking third, which proved costly in the end.

Perhaps, they opened the World Cup Qualifying campaign with one of their best performances in some time against Iceland, however, it was only flattering to deceive considering the poor showings in the last two games. Germany are currently third in Group J tied on points with Macedonia.

Gundogan lamented about the defeat: This cannot ever happen.

“They had two chances, twice in front of our goal and twice they scored.

“It was just too easy. We dominated had our chances but scored just once. To leave a man twice unmarked in the box should not happen.”

Line-ups

Germany

Marc-André ter Stegen, Emre Can, Antonio Rüdiger, Robin Gosens, Matthias Ginter, Joshua Kimmich, Leon Goretzka, Ilkay Gündogan, Leroy Sané, Serge Gnabry, Kai Havertz.

Substitutes

Kevin Trapp, Bernd Leno, Amin Younes, Jonathan Tah, Timo Werner, Philipp Max, Lukas Klostermann, Florian Neuhaus, Florian Wirtz, Jamal Musiala.

North Macedonia

Stole Dimitrievski, Darko Velkoski, Visar Musliu, Stefan Ristovski, Ezgjan Alioski, Boban Nikolov, Arijan Ademi, Eljif Elmas, Enis Bardhi, Goran Pandev, Aleksandar Trajkovski.

Substitutes

Krste Velkovski, Agim Ibraimi, Martin Bogatinov, Ferhan Hasani, Stefan Spirovski, Damjan Siskovski, Kire Ristevski, Stefan Askovski, Marjan Radeski, Egzon Bejtulai, Vlatko Stojanovski.