Football players from Portugal and North Macedonia in Porto, or Poland and Sweden in Warsaw, will play on Tuesday to qualify for the World Cup in Qatar.
The Macedonians in Porto are looking for a second miracle after they knocked out Italy in Palermo with Trajkovski's goal in stoppage time, and Portugal enters this game with great caution, because in the last round of qualification they lost the 1st place in the group and the visa to Qatar by defeating Serbia in Lisbon (1:2).
"The Macedonians surprised Italy, but that selection also beat the Germans in Duisburg. This is the final, and the final is always difficult, I was part of such games and I know what I'm talking about. We will approach the game with the Macedonians with the same respect we showed against Turkey." said the Portuguese coach Fernando Santos.
"At the moment, football is different. Anyone can beat anyone. Names, numbers and statistics don't matter," warned Portuguese midfielder Joao Moutinho when asked about facing the country's selection of two million people, whose footballers are ranked a modest 67th to the world.
North Macedonia coach Blagoja Milevski pointed out that his team does not want to stop after the victory in Palermo.
"We beat one of the best selections in the world. We will not stop here, we have one more step to the World Cup. We are well on our way to confirming why we are among the 20 best in Europe," Milevski said.
The Portuguese and Macedonians played one match between themselves, a friendly in 2012 in Lisbon, which ended 0:0.
"Honestly, this could be one of the most difficult and exciting matches for all of us. We have 90 minutes to fulfill our childhood dream, and not only ours, but the whole country's," said Elif Elmas.
In the second match of the play-off, Poland will meet Sweden, which knocked out the Czech Republic in the semi-finals after extra time.
Poland advanced to the play-off final without a fight after Russia was suspended from the competition due to the war in Ukraine.
"I don't know if what we showed against the Czech Republic would be enough against Poland. We won't play the same way, because Poland plays differently," said Sweden coach Jane Anderson.
Polish coach Czeslaw Michniewicz said that his team "studied" Sweden well and knows what to expect from them.
"They are a very good, very well-organized team, there is no doubt about that. But we have our own plan for this game," said Poljak.
The last traveler to Qatar from Europe will be known in June, when Wales welcome the better of the Scotland-Ukraine game, which was postponed due to the war in Ukraine.
So far, 20 national teams have qualified for the World Cup - Croatia, Denmark, Germany, France, Belgium, Serbia, Spain, England, Switzerland, Netherlands, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay, Canada, Qatar, Iran, South Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia.
The group draw for the World Cup is scheduled for April 1 in Doha.
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