FK Vardar

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Sko1987

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Fudbalski Klub Vardar is a football club based in the capital city of Skopje, in Macedonia. The club was founded in 1947 and they have been members of the Macedonian First Football League since its inception in 1992. The club play their games at the national stadium Philip II Arena which is one of the most modern stadiums in the Southeast of Europe. The stadium has a capacity of 33,460 and hosted the UEFA Super Cup final between Manchester United and Real Madrid in August 2017.

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Philip II Arena in Skopje during the final of the UEFA Super Cup 2017
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Vardar is the most successful club from Macedonia with 10 domestic league titles and 5 domestic cup titles. The club have also won both the Yugoslavian league and cup once. Vardar became the first Macedonian team ever to qualify for the group stage of a European competition after knocking out Fenerbahce in the playoffs to the UEFA Europa League 2017/2018.

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All domestic titles since the country’s independence
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The club is owned by a Russian millionaire and businessman called Sergey Samsonenko. He took over the men’s and women’s handball clubs of Vardar and made both of them very successful. The handball clubs had their biggest success last season when the men’s team won the Champions League and the women’s team lost the final on overtime.
FK Vardar finished 5th in the domestic league 2013/2014, missing out on all the four European spots. Samsonenko took over the football club of Vardar in 2014 after many speculations and wishes from the fans. Since then, Vardar have won three straight league titles.


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“A big man for a European club. Welcome to F.K. Vardar” was the message from the fans to Samsonenko before the takeover of the football club.
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I have not set any concrete goals for this save like winning the Champions League or using just Macedonian players. The only goal I have is to win the domestic league every season. I want to make the club the first in Macedonia to qualify for the group stages of the Europa League and the Champions League since it has not happened at the start of this save.
I apologize if my English is not perfect, but it is not my native language. If you have any questions regarding Macedonia or Macedonian football feel free to ask.
Hopefully you will enjoy this save together with me.

 
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Pre-season and Starting XI

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Starting XI
We have 24 players in our squad at the start of the save. The first eleven is decent however there are some positions we could improve. The squad is good enough for the Macedonian competitions but a bit thin for the European. We are going to play a 4-2-3-1 formation and the goal is to control the games with much possession.

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Champions League
In the 2nd Qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League we have been drawn against BATE Borisov from Belarus. Vardar and Bate met in the same round 5 years ago and the Belarussian went through with 3-2 on aggregate score.

BATE is the only Belarusian team to have qualified for the group stage of the UEFA Champions League (2008–09, 2011–12, 2012–13, 2014–15 and 2015–16) and one of two to qualify for the group stage of the UEFA Europa League (2009–10, 2010–11 and 2017–18), along with Dinamo Minsk. The club's home stadium is Borisov Arena, which was opened in 2014.



Friendlies
To prepare for the second qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League we played four friendlies. We played against three Russian giants and one smaller local club. It was good for us to play against eastern European teams because they play similar to BATE Borisov. I am very pleased with our results and we are prepared to beat the Belarusians.

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NEW SIGNING

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We brought in our first transfer and it is the German left winger Michael Klauß. We bought him from 1. FC Köln II where he made 33 appearances and scored 8 goals. He has previously played in VFR Aalen, Regensburg and FC Stuttgart II.

Manager’s comment: Michael is a fast player with good technique. He haven’t got the chance to prove himself at the highest level yet and we will try to get the maximum out of him. We hope that he can affect our team in many positive ways.

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Champions League
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First Leg
Finally it was time for some European football. We played the first leg away in Belarus and surprised the home team directly by going offensive from the start. Our captain Boban Grncarov scored the first goal of the match already in the 4th minute from a corner. The goal did put much pressure on the Belarussians because of the away goal we scored.
30 minutes later, our Brazilian magician Juan Felipe found the net after a perfect through ball from his countryman Ytalo.
Bate had many shots towards our goal but they couldn't create anything too dangerous. In the 71st minute they finally got their first goal in the game and started to put some pressure. We tried to keep the possession to make them frustrated and just four minutes after their goal, Boban Nikolov scored 1-3 to us which also became the final result of the first leg.
We played exactly how we wanted from the first to the last minute and got a very good result with us before the second leg in Macedonia.


Second Leg
The second leg was played in the southeast of Macedonia, in a city called Strumica, because the federation wanted to save the pitch in Skopje for the Super Cup of UEFA.
BATE had to score at least three goals to go through because of our away goals in Borisov. We took control of this game directly and scored the first goal in the 33rd minute.
Our second goal came in the beginning of the second half. Ytalo played the ball into the box and Juan Felipe scored.
BATE got one goal back with 20 minutes left but didn't come any closer, and we were through to the third qualifying round!


Third qualifying round draw
In the third round we have been drawn to play against FC Astana from Kazakhstan. Founded as Lokomotiv Astana in 2009, the club changed its name to Astana in 2011. The short history of the club already boasts four league titles, three Kazakhstan Cups and two Kazakhstan Super Cups.
Astana beat Spartaks Jurmala from Latvia with 5-2 on aggregate score to advance to this round.
 
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Champions League
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First Leg (3rd qualifying round)
Against Astana we got off to a terrible start by conceding after only six minutes. We took control of the game but they hit us on a counter attack. Having conceded one away goal we knew we had to go offensive.
In the 16th minute our new signing Michael Klauß scored from outside the box to make it 1-1. That was his first goal for the club.
The game ended with a 1-1 draw. None of the teams deserved to win, but Astana were in the better position for the second leg because of their away goal.


Second Leg (3rd qualifying round)
We had to score at least one goal to go through to the playoffs. The game started in the worst possible way, when Boban Grncarov took down a player in the box and the home team made it 1-0 after 14 minutes.
We continued to play the same way, not too offensive, because it was still early in the game. Just three minutes after their goal our right back Hambardzumyan put in a fantastic cross to Ytalo who leveled the score to 1-1. The pressure were now on the home team because they had to win if they wanted to go through, while for us a draw was fine as long as we scored one more goal.
We were the better team throughout the game and already in the first minute of the second half we took the lead. Dejan Blazevski scored on the third rebound after the goalkeeper saved both Boban Nikolov’s and Michael Klauß’s shots.
Astana had to score two goals and the closest they came were a shot in the post in the 70th minute. The game ended 1-2 and we are through to the playoffs.


Play off draw
We were seeded in the play-off draw and could be drawn against either Rijeka, Maribor, Sheriff, Partizan or Slavia Prague. Sheriff and Slavia were the teams with the lowest coefficients in the unseeded pot.
We got drawn against the Moldavian champion Sheriff Tiraspol. The club was founded in 1997 and has dominated Moldovan football since 2001, winning 14 of 16 possible championship titles in the Moldovan National Division.
To get to this round, the team knocked out Buducnost (2-1) and Olympiacos (2-1).
The loser of this game will automatically be qualified for the group stage of the UEFA Europa League, which means that we have already made history after just four games in charge of this club.
 
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Champions League​

First Leg (Playoff)
We played the first leg against Sheriff Tiraspol at home in Skopje. We started of terribly by conceding after just 5 minutes of play. Since then everything got worse. Vanja Markovic got sent off after a stupid tackle from behind, Sheriff scored a penalty, and our captain got sent off very unfortunate after tripping their last man instead getting the ball.
We couldn't hold out with two players less on the pitch and conceded the third goal directly in the second half. We got one back through Nikola Gligorov but in the late stages of the game the Moldavians scored another one and took one step into the group stage of the Champions League.




Second Leg (Playoff)
In the second leg we had to score at least four goals to go through. We gave the chance to many reserves and younger players in the starting eleven. This game was more even than the first one in Macedonia, but the Moldavian champion had a two goal lead at halftime. We took in Juan Felipe and Ytalo for the second half, and what an impact they had on the game!
We dominated the second half and with 25 minutes left of the game we needed three more goals to go through. Three minutes after our equalizer we got a penalty and everyone started to believe that a comeback is possible, but Dejan Blazevski could not handle the pressure and he missed the whole goal. The game ended with a 2-2 draw and we were knocked out with 3-6 on aggregate score.



Europa League draw
In the Europa League we got drawn in Group I together with Villarreal, Sporting CP and APOEL. We expected a tough draw as we were in the 4th pot, but we are optimistic and believe that we can go through.



Our opponents

Villarreal CF
Founded: 1923
Country: Spain
League: La Liga
Club reputation: 4 stars
Stadium: Estadio de la Cerámica (25 000)
Manager: Javi Calleja
Best players: Carlos Bacca, Manu Trigueros, Cédric Bakambu

Sporting CP
Founded: 1906
Country: Portugal
League: Liga NOS
Club reputation: 4 stars
Stadium: Estádio José Alvalade Século XXI (50 044)
Manager: Jorge Jesus
Best players: William Carvalho, Bruno Fernandez, Rui Patricio

APOEL FC
Founded: 1926
Country: Cyprus
League: Cyta Championship
Club reputation: 3 stars
Stadium: GSP (22 859)
Manager: Giorgos Donis
Best players: Giorgos Efraim, Carlão, Tommy Oar


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August
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Macedonian First League


GW1: Sileks - FK Vardar
GW2: FK Vardar - FC Shkupi
GW3: Akademija Pandev - FK Vardar

We got off to a good start in the domestic league. In the first game away at Sileks we scored three goals and hit the woodwork 6 times.
We dropped our first points in the league already in the first home game. We couldn’t beat Shkupi despite having 64% of the possession and 15 shots towards their goal.
Our last game of the month were perfect from the start until the end. We scored five goals and our new signing Michael Klauß scored two of them. We played against Akademija Pandev (Academy of Pandev) which is a team made by Goran Pandev who was born in the city Strumica in Southeast of Macedonia.

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Due to the Playoff in Champions League, Vardar have one game in hand
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Macedonian Cup
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R1: Gostivar - FK Vardar

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In the first round of the cup we gave the chance to the usual substitutes. We controlled the game and managed to score the winning goal in the 74th minute.
In the next round of the cup we will play against Lokomotiva Skopje from the Second League. The tie will be played over two legs.

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