Hello everyone! I’m Marcel and I come from Poland. Honestly, I have loved football since the first years of my life. Knowing about my long-awaited trip to Macedonia as a volunteer, I wanted to write about Macedonian football players who played or still play for Polish clubs during their careers.

In Poland’s top football division, the Ekstraklasa, some Macedonian players have managed to play so far. Here is a list of all players from this Balkan country who have played in the Polish top division in the past and up to the present, along with a description of the activities of some of them.

A total of 22 players have played in the Polish league, and two of them play in Poland to this day. Third player to be mentioned, Enis Fazlagic, since a long time is on a loan from Wisła Kraków that fell to the Polish second division from Ekstraklasa on the final road of 2022/2023 season. 

After the first of the Macedonian players to move to the Polish Ekstraklasa, that is Goku Petruszevski, the next was Marjan Gerasimovski. He ended his football adventure in Legia Warszawa in 2001 and played only 7 games in their colors. Of all the Macedonian players, the following managed to play the longest during their football careers in Poland: Filip Ivanovski who used to play for Dyskobolia and Polonia Warszawa. He scored 21 goals for Polonia and it’s definitely one of the  best results from these players of all time.

Panche Kumbev played in Poland between 2004 and 2010; Vlade Lazarevski appeared on Polish pitches between 2005 and 2009; Ostoja Stjepanovikj – 2013-2017; Zlatko Tanevski – 2007-2011 and Aleksandar Todorovski, remembered by Polish fans for playing for Polonia Warszawa and Zagłębie Lubin. In addition to them, for a shorter or longer football time were the following players: Stefan Ashkovski, Aleksandar Bajevski, Vlado Danilov.

The next Macedonian player from this list is Dejan Iliev who was only a temporary goalkeeper of Jagiellonia Białystok during his next loan from Arsenal FC. He only made a few appearances for this club from the east side of Poland. One of the two players from Macedonia who are constantly playing to this day for any Polish football is Tihomir Kostadinov who has contracted for Piast Gliwice, but for a lot of months he is injured and never plays for his club. More to mention: Borche Manevski, Goran Popov, Aco Stojkov, David Toshevski, Ivan Trichkovski, Jani Urdinov and his namesake, who was actually player of Cracovia Kraków since the beginning of 2023  after he was loaned by Croatian club Hajduk Split. We are talking about Jani Atanasov. So far, he played regularly under the side of coach Jacek Zieliński, often from the first minute.

To be honest, the one that I know the most from this group of players from Macedonia is a striker from Bitola, Mirko Ivanovski. He played in the North of Poland in 2010-2011 when he was a contracted player of my favorite Polish club, Arka, which has its headquarter in my city, Gdynia. To this day, most Arka Gdynia fans remember him and are mentioning with positive sound.

Maybe during free time from volunteering activities I will go to one of the stadiums in the capital city of Macedonia. See you soon!

Marcel Mańkowski