Who Are You? Where Are You?





















And so as Andorra strike camp and head back to their tax haven ski resort it's England's turn to take the Euro 2008 caravan on the road to Macedonia where they meet The Red Lions in Match 2 of the qualifiers.

Okay, some facts about the country: its full name is the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM for short), the capital city is Skopje, the country has a population of 2,045,262 which is made up of Orthodox (67%) and Muslim (30%). The currency is the Macedonian Denar (MKD)

It footballing terms Macedonia are ranked 67th, they finished two places above Andorra and four points better off in the 2006 World Cup Qualifiers. Macedonia's best win is an 11-1 away victory against Liechtenstein in 1996.

England played Macedonia in the 2004 Euro Qualifiers, drawing 2-2 at St.Mary's when David Seaman let in a goal direct from a corner.

Their latest match was on 16 August when they beat Estonia 1-0 in Tallinn. This made Macedonia the first team to score a goal in the Euro 2008 Qualifiers, it took their unbeaten run to three games and it meant that for the first time in their short history they had gone two consecutive games without conceding a goal.

And here's a Macedonian joke:

Q. What asks no questions but receives lots of answers?
A. A Telephone.

and here is the Macedonian folk story "The Master and The Son In Law."

Some very rich master had a daughter that needed to be married.

A lot of single men went to his house asking to marry his daughter. The rich master said to all of them that they would have to carry a basket of fruit on their head for at least a month and sell it. Everyone that heard of this were driven away. One day the son of a very rich man agreed to do what the master asked only if he would get his daughter.

For a whole month he carried a wooden basket on his head filled with pears, apples and anything else that the master gave him to sell. When the time passed, he said to the master:

- Why did you make me sell fruit and embarrassed my self?

And the rich master answered:
- If in the future you go broke, you won't have shame. You can sell fruit and get a bit of money so that you can continue living with my daughter and won't starve.

I can feel a strokey beard moment coming on!