The next player to feature
in our interview series is midfielder Darko Tasevski. All of our questions centered around the national team of Macedonia.
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| Darko Tasevski; photo: Bangkok Glass Facebook |
Darko Tasevski has built a nice career for himself having featured for clubs in Macedonia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Israel and his latest adventure taking him to Thailand. Darko began his professional career at Cementarnica 55, then transferred to Vardar before beginning his international career in 2005.
Tasevski, who will turn 30 years old in May, is most known for his time with Levski in Bulgaria. He spent five years with Levski and build a good rapport with the club's supporters. Eventually, he left the club during the 2012 summer transfer window to join Ironi Kiryat Shmona. After a year-and-a-half with Shmona, Tasevski decided to embark on a new challenge by accepting an offer from Bangkok Glass in Thailand.
Darko has also appeared in 45 games for the Macedonian national team, scoring one goal that came in a friendly against Slovenia in November of 2012. He was a regular call-up in the previous qualifications, so we decided to reach out to Tasevski to get his thoughts on the atmosphere within the team, whether there was mistrust between the coaches and players, and his take on the retirement from Pandev, among other things.
Here is our question and answer session with Tasevski:
MF: Late in these past qualifications for the 2014 World Cup, was the atmosphere as bad as it was reported in many newspapers?
DT: In the beginning, the atmosphere was very good, but after Janevski left the team everything went downhill.
MF: Why do you think there is mistrust between the coaches and players? Is it due to the feeling of certain players being forced on the roster?
DT: I don't think that in the last qualifications there was mistrust. I think that we missed a little luck to win some games, like against Croatia and Belgium, when we played very good, but we missed our chances.
MF: With your recent transfer to Bangkok Glass in Thailand, do you still want to play for Macedonia in the future?
DT: I love my country and I will always play when they ask me to play. But now things in the national team are not so good. That's why many players quit and spoke about this in the last couple of months.
MF: Were you surprised that Goran Pandev retired from the national team, and who do you see stepping up to become a leader?
DT: No, I was not surprised. I know him and I know how he felt about the things that were happening in the national team. He was giving 100% every game, but some people didn't appreciate that. I don't know who the next leader will be, but no matter who it is, he will need 100% support from the people in the national team.
MF: What kind of changes does new manager Boshko Gjurovski need to instill to lead to better results for the national team?
DT: I wish Gjurovski luck and to achieve good results. Maybe it will be best for everyone if he gave more chances to the young players in the next qualifications. He also needs to be given time to build a good team.
In the coming days, we will publish articles about our interviews with Mario Gjurovski, Daniel Mojsov, Stefan Ashkovski and Tome Kitanovski. Look for those to be unveiled over the coming week.
