On This Day – 16th October
It was on this day back in 2002 that Macedonian Artim Sakiri managed to embarrass David Seaman by scoring direct from a corner against England in a European Championship qualifier.
Seaman was making his 75th appearance for his country. The Macedonia game turned out to be his last game for England as manager Sven Goran Eriksson replaced the 39 year old with David James.
England were expected to beat Macedonia quite convincingly but they stuttered to a 2-2 draw at Southampton’s St Mary’s Stadium. It was the first match between the two countries.
Sakiri’s 11th minute corner broke the deadlock. His left footed inswinger from the right zipped in over Seaman’s head, dropping under the bar to give Macedonia a shock lead.
England were level three minutes later after David Beckham lobbed in from the edge of the box. The Macedonian goalkeeper’s positioning was more than suspect and Beckham had an easy job lifting the ball over him.
Ten minutes later, Macedonia took the lead for a second time. Vanco Trajanov was left in plenty of space and fired in a low shot past David Seaman from 25 yards. Steven Gerrard scored after 36 minutes with a well taken effort at the edge of the box to level the scores to end a frantic first half of goals. Neither side could follow this up with a winner and the game ended 2-2.
England topped the qualifying group, winning eight and drawing two of the ten group games and progressed to Euro 2004. Macedonia finished fourth out of five teams with six points.
About Author
