Recap
North Macedonia is expecting a double-match with Portugal in the qualifiers for the European Championship 2024, and before these two games the coach Lazarov is facing big problems. Key players Filip Taleski, Dejan Manaskov, Goce Georgievski, Mario Tankovski, Pavle Atanasijevic and Zarko Peshevski dropped out of the team due to various reasons, and it’s certain that this will be the youngest selection of North Macedonia in history.
At the last World championship in Kraków (January 2023), North Macedonia was with a rejuvenated team. Key players such as Kiril Lazarov, Stojance Stoilov, Filip Mirkulovski, and Borko Risteski retired from the national team. The new system of playing introduced by coach Lazarov, with a fast center and a lot of running is catastrophic. Coach Lazarov is a parallel coach of the new project Alkaloid and called many „kids“ from his team, who for me are a total shame to be in the national team. They took only three victories against South Korea, Morocco and Algeria, while in the group stage were embarrassed with high defeats from Norway, Netherlands, Argentina, and then from Tunisia. Five from the players who are absent in this match were in the national team, and were one of the best.
Portuguese coach Paulo Pereira released the list of players for Portugal’s double clash against North Macedonia, which highlights the absence of Kiko Costa (Sporting), while Alexis Borges (Benfica) retired from the national team after the World Cup in January. Portuguese handball is in big progress in recent years and they showed that in the last World championship, where they were only 1 point away from qualifying into the 1/2 finals.
I think that North Macedonia is too weak, and Portugal should easily cover this line, which I think will be much higher until Thursday.
Extra bet: -6.5 handicap Portugal @ 2.20 odds