Around 22,000 people are in attendance this evening at the Phillip II of Macedonia Arena. Liverpool has around 2,500 supporters.

Rabotnicki in the first 10 minutes has done nothing, barely hanging on to the ball. The French referee is a bit too lenient towards Liverpool's players, as much as a wind headed towards them results in a foul.

Rabotnicki's defense is slow, while its midfield... I have yet to locate it.

Speaking of slow, Liverpool's Ngog cut off a slow pass in the back, Rabotnicki's defensive line was very slow to react... Ngog lobbed over the goalie, for an easy tap in... 1-0 to Liverpool.

20th minute. Rabotnicki tries to break forward via Wandeir... who finds itself alone... 

22' Liverpool's defender gets chorus of boos as soon as he toches the ball. His name is Sotirios Kyrgiakos.

25' Rabotnicki enjoys posessions, but can't do much with it. Liverpool is simply too fast. 

28' The Stadium speaker asks Macedonian fans to be 'correct'. Is he Mad? His request is followed by boos. Kyrgiakos touches the ball again, more boos from the fans, Stadium speaker asks fans to be correct again. More boos towards the stadium speaker. This is fun.

31' Rabotnicki is more relaxed, enjoys more posession, ventures into Liverpool's territory. Liverpool now looks dangerous on the counter attacks.

36' Kyrgiakos gets hurt, saluted by fans with boos. Well, you can sort of see why Macedonia hasn't played a 'friendly' match against Greece since... 1986?

40' The match has slowed down a bit... not much is happening apart from the two corner kicks by Liverpool. Jovanovic has shown good play, easily passing through Rabotnicki's defenders. He may earn himself a starting spot in Hodgson's team.

45' Rabotnicki tries to break, but its players seemed too focused on defending. Opportunity lost. Half Time.

Sad news out of Sweden, Teteks got crushed by Elfsborg 5-0. This continues the tradition of disastrous results for Macedonian clubs, every time the match is officiated by a Bulgarian Ref. Teteks did protest UEFA's decision of inserting a Bulgarian ref for the Elfsborg match, which also breaks UEFA's rule of "Ref from neighboring nations can not be delegated to officiate international matches".

2nd Half Kicks Off.

47' The stadium is fairly quiet. Not much happening, though you do hear 2, 3 vuvuzelas.

52' Rabotnicki tries to break away, but they can't seem to get very far. Liverpool has organized its players magnificently.

58' Kyrgiakos is slow to react, Wandeir gets a chance and blasts the ball over the goal. Best chance so far for Rabotnicki.

61' Ngog doubles Liverpool's lead with a beauty. Out of a play that didn't look promising, a cross into Rabotnicki's box was well placed into the top right corner by Ngog. 2-0.

67' Darby enters for Liverpool, Mojsov for Rabotnicki. 

70' Rabotnicki has another chance through Gligorov, shot deflected into corner. Another corner follows, lands safely into Liverpool's GK hands.

Rabotnicki's coach (Zoran Stratev) was right "There is 100% chance Liverpool will win the match." Who wouldn't want to have this guy motivate a team?

73' Petkovski enters the match.

78' What a move by Rabotnicki's forwards. Mojsov and Petkovski managed to make a fool out of Liverpool's defense only for the latter to send an awkard pass outside the box. Chance wasted. Petkovski who just entered the match has caused a bit of confusion among Liverpool's defensive players.

82' Another chance for Rabotnicki. Through ball played for Petkovski, but the youngster fails to beat the Liverpool goalie who wisely read the situation and slid to gather the ball.

85' Liverpool or not, Macedonians are not fans of poor football. The Nort stand is almost 2/3 empty, it helds 12,000. Similar is the situation with the South Stand.

88' Liverpool broke quickly, but were stopped just outside the box. Now Rabotnicki is trying to break forward. 2 minutes of ET added. Rabotnicki at this time is not trying to score, rather seem to be preserving a 2-0 loss.

Full Time. Liverpool wins 2-0. The rematch will be a mere formality back in England. I wish I brought my Vuvuzela.  // Pero Stamatovski