Celtic’s potential Qualifying Round 1 opponents in the 2020/21 Champions League: FK Sileks of North Macedonia…

Ahead of the draw for the first qualifying round of the 2020/21 Champions League in Nyon on Sunday, 9 August 2020, I thought I would take a brief look at the 17 potential opponents for Celtic. There are still one or two things to be finalised, however, the picture is starting to look quite clear, so here goes.

2/17: FK Sileks of North Macedonia

The second lowest-ranked club in the Champions League is FK Sileks, with a co-efficient of 1.4750. They will represent North Macedonia, despite not winning the 2019/20 national title.

Founded

FK Sileks was established in 1965, in the town of Kratovo, which is located in the north-east of the country, near the borders of Serbia and Bulgaria.

Colours

FK Sileks wear Barcelona-style red-and-blue vertical striped jerseys with blue shorts and red socks. The current away kit is white jerseys and shorts with red socks.

Stadium

The club’s home ground is the Gradski Stadion (City Stadium) Sileks-Kratovo, which holds only 1,800 spectators. Major matches in Macedonia are often played at the 33,500-capacity Tose Proeski National Arena in the capital city of Skopje.

This is the home of the Macedonian national team, as well as the countriy’s two most successful club sides FK Vardar and FK Rabotnicki, and is named after the ‘Macedonian Elvis,’ who was tragically killed in a car crash in 2007, aged just 26. It is the UEFA Category 4-rated stadium which hosted the 2017 UEFA Super Cup clash between Real Madrid and Manchester United.

Nickname

We’re doing well here. Following on from yesterday’s Tal-Irish or Il Greens, today’s potential opponents are nicknamed the Kratovo Boys. Looks like they’ve lost an ‘h’ somewhere though.

Season 2019/20

The 10-team Macedonian First League was abandoned on 4 June 2020, due to COVID. When play was suspended on 11 March, Vardar led Sileks by 10 points with 13 games remaining, whilst defending champions Shkendija were a further point behind. The Football Federation of North Macedonia decided not to award the title, however, second-placed Sileks were allocated the Champions League qualification spot after League-leaders Vardar did not obtain a UEFA licence due to financial issues. With relegation suspended, this season’s top division will be extended to 12 clubs, with two teams promoted from the Macedonian Second League.

Domestic record

FK Sileks did not operate at the top level in the old Yugoslavian League set-up. Their greatest achievement in that era was reaching the quarter-final of the 1989/90 Yugoslav Cup, knocking out top-tier sides Zeljeznicar Sarajevo and their city rivals FK Sarajevo, before losing out to Croatians NK Osijek.

That competition was won by Red Star Belgrade, thanks to a goal by Macedonian Darko Pancev against a Hajduk Split side featuring Slaven Bilic, Robert Jarny and Alen Boksic. Red Star would become European and World club champions the following year, with a line-up which also included Robert Prosinecki, Dejan Savicevic and Dragan Stojkovic.

FK Sileks golden period coincided with the introduction of the Macedonian First League after independence from Yugoslavia in 1992, the club winning three successive titles and finishing as runners-up four times in the first seven seasons.

They also won the national cup twice in that period, completing their only double in 1996/97. Sileks suffered its solitary relegation from the top tier at the end of the 2012/13 campaign, bouncing back immediately to win the Macedonian Second League the following season. Last season was their best performance since finishing second in the elite division back in 2003/04.

European record

FK Sileks made their European debut in the Cup-Winners’ Cup of 1995/96, beating Hungarians Vac in the qualifying round before losing out to Borussia Monchengladbach in the first round. That remains the only tie they have won in eight attempts, although they have managed to win four of their home legs. Biggest European result for Sileks to date has been their 2-1 home victory over Shakhtar Donetsk in the UEFA Cup qualifying round of 1999/00, although they also managed a 1-1 draw against Maribor in Slovenia at the same stage the following season.

Previous meetings & Celtic connections

Celtic have never met a club from North Macedonia in European competition. As far as I can tell, the closest we came was in last season’s Champions League, when Shkendija were seeded against Estonians Nomme Kalju in the first qualifying round, with the winners due to meet Celts next, if the Hoops could overcome FK Sarajevo.

The Macedonians were in pole position after a 1-0 victory in Tallinn and were seconds away from meeting Celtic, with the return leg tied at 1-1 in the dying seconds, before a stoppage-time winner from Liliu saw the Estonian Pink Panthers through on away goals for their date with Neil Lennon’s Bhoys.

There was a Celtic connection for the first-ever European tie played by a Macedonian team. Yugoslav Cup-winners Vardar faced Dunfermline Athletic in the first round of the 1961/62 European Cup Winners’ Cup, in what would be Jock Stein’s first challenge against continental opposition, the Pars having beaten Ireland’s St Patrick’s Athletic in the preliminary round, whilst Vardar received a bye.

Stein’s men would win 5-0 at East End Park, rendering the second leg a formality. For the record, Vardar won that game 2-0 to record the first victory for a Macedonian side in European competition. Vardar also lost to Dundee United in the 1985/86 UEFA Cup, whilst, more recently, the Europa League has seen victories for Aberdeen over Shkendija (1-1 on away goals in 2015/16) and Rangers over Shkupi (2-0 in 2018/19).

Two current Celts have played against Macedonia, however, Scott Brown and James Forrest, whilst on international duty with Scotland. The Hoops skipper featured in a 1-0 defeat in Skopje in George Burley’s first competitive game as national coach in September 2008, one of five Celts in the starting 11 (captain Stephen McManus, Gary Caldwell, Paul Hartley and Barry Robson were the others), whilst a sixth, Shaun Maloney, came off the bench. Craig Gordon, Kenny Miller and Kris Commons, all then with different clubs, also featured that afternoon.

Brown then opened the scoring in the return World Cup qualifier at Hampden 12 months later, in a 2-0 win for Scotland, his first goal for his country. The countries were drawn together again in the qualifying campaign for the next World Cup, James Forrest the only Celt involved under Craig Levein in a disappointing 1-1 draw at Hampden in September 2012. Scott Brown was back to lead Scotland in Skopje the following September 2013, beside his Parkhead teammate Charlie Mulgrew, as his former Parkhead colleague, Shaun Maloney, scored a last-minute winner for Gordon Strachan’s men. Brown’s opposite number that day was Goran Pandev, considered by many as the greatest Macedonian player of all time.

He had captained his country in all four of those meetings with Scotland and is the all-time leading goalscorer for his country, with 34 goals in 108 caps earned to date. At club level, he made his name in Italy, winning the Coppa Italia five times with three different clubs – Lazio, Inter Milan and Napoli – as well as Serie A, European and World club champions medals with the Nerazzurri under Jose Mourinho at the San Siro in 2010. That same year, Pandev founded his own youth academy, Akademija Pandev, in Strumica, the town of his birth. A senior team representing the Academy was promoted to the top division in 2017, finished third two years later to qualify for last season’s Europa League. They are captained by Pandev’s younger brother, Sashko. The elder Pandev, who will celebrate his 37th birthday on Monday, is still plying his trade in Serie A with Genoa, where he has starred since 2015.

Current personnel

FK Silek’s current squad is made up exclusively of players from North Macedonia and Serbia, whilst all but one of their managers has hailed from one or either of those countries, former Partizan Belgrade and Vojvodina winger Josip Pirmajer, a Slovenian who played in the 1966 European Cup Final, the only exception to that rule. Former Sileks goalkeeper Goran Simov, a Serbian of Macedonian descent, has been the manager in Kratovo since April 2019, having spent two separate spells at the club as a player. Simov won two successive Macedonian titles whilst with Vardar, in 2011/12 and 2012/13, before finishing his playing career back at Sileks.

I hope you enjoyed that look at the second of our potential European opponents.

Number 3 of 17 will follow tomorrow…

Hail Hail!

Matt

Follow Matt on Twitter @Boola_vogue