Lazio was the club where Pandev made his big breakthrough

Football has such an influence on people that it can lead to a football player being considered a national hero, surpassing almost any other personality in a country. In countries with a greater football tradition, it is not so common for this to happen, but in "smaller" countries this can be seen a little more common.

Today's protagonist, Goran Pandev, is a little more than an idol in his country and for a good reason. Not only for what he did in his clubs, which was already important, but for the way he always defended the colors of his national team and how with 37 years old he was able to achieve the greatest feat in the history of Macedonian football.

Beginnings

Goran Pandev was born on July 27, 1983, in Strumica, a city in the region of Macedonia which, at the time, was still part of Yugoslavia, which, interestingly, makes Pandev older than his country. His hometown is known for its good gastronomy, which made the Macedonian return with some extra kilo for the beginning of the preseason, as Delio Rossi, Pandev's manager at Lazio, would declare at some point.

From a young age he joined the training teams of FK Belasica, a club located in Strumica and where he rose through the ranks until he debuted in the first team in 1999, at only 17 years old. In the summer of 2001, in a market in which Inter Milan signed players like Toldo, Materazzi, Sergio Conceicao and Emre Belözoglu, Pandev also arrived at the black and blue club. Curiously, Darko Pancev (winner of the European Cup with Red Star Belgrade in 1991 and Macedonia's top figure before Pandev), also played for Inter.

Of course, the Pandev's role was not as leading as that of those mentioned before and he was limited to having minutes with Inter's reserve team. For the 2002-03 season, the Milanese club decided to loan him to Spezia, a team that was in Serie C1 (third tier of Italian football at that time) and where he managed to get the minutes that he did not have at Inter. The following season, Inter would loan him out again, this time to Ancona, which was in Serie A, and here the Macedonian finally would have the opportunity to show himself at the highest level of Italian football.

The consecration

In the Winter transfer window of 2004, Lazio was in a difficult financial situation and was forced to sell one of its figures, in this case, the Serbian Dejan Stankovic. Although there was great interest from Juventus who had already advanced the signing, finally the Serbian went to Inter, with Pandev being part of the deal, using that exchange methodology so common in Italian football. As he was in the middle of his loan at Ancona, the Macedonian's signing to Lazio would be for the beginning of the 2004-05 season.

Lazio was the club where Pandev had his big breakthrough

At Lazio, Pandev had an almost immediate impact, establishing himself as one of the team's most important offensive pieces alongside Tommaso Rocchi. The Macedonian was not known for being a great scorer, but he was a great second striker with great ability to dribble and break rival defenses, as he demonstrated a few months after arriving at the Roman club, scoring a great goal against Juventus, in which he left Thuram and Cannavaro on the way to score against Buffon. That goal was confirmation that they were in the presence of a striker with unusual talent.

Pandev had many experiences within the Roman club, from finishing in 16th place after Calciopoli to being third in 2006-07 or winning the Coppa Italia in 2008-09. The Macedonian stayed for 5 seasons and became Lazio's benchmark, however, in the summer of 2009, the player asked for a renewal of his contract that included a salary increase because he was receiving offers from different European clubs. Lazio refused to sell him and this led to a legal conflict between Pandev and the club.

Claudio Lotito, owner and president of Lazio, did not allow the Macedonian to play until the legal conflict was resolved, which was finally defined in December, in favor of Pandev. The resolution indicated that the club had to leave the player as a free agent so that he had freedom of action to choose his next destination and Lazio had to pay him financial compensation. Finally, it was Inter that signed Pandev again, of course, this time with a much more important role than the previous time.

The Macedonian arrived at a club that was having a very good season under Jose Mourinho and in which Pandev found his place as a replacement for that team's strikers, Diego Milito and Samuel Eto'o. In 2010, Pandev would win Serie A, the Coppa Italia, the UEFA Champions League and the FIFA Club World Cup.

The Macedonian would remain at Inter for one more year before continuing his career with other Italian teams such as Napoli, Genoa and Parma, where he would end his career in 2022 in Serie B at 39 years old, remembering a brief time at Galatasaray in Turkey in 2014-15. The Macedonian retired with 101 goals in 493 Serie A games, this without being a classic goalscorer.

North Macedonia

In addition to being a great player at club level in Italy, Pandev was a football idol like no other North Macedonia had in its short existence. He is the player with the most appearances in the history of the North Macedonia national team (122) and is also the top scorer (38). One of those goals came in 2020 against Georgia and meant Macedonia qualified for the Euro for the first and only time to date.

Furthermore, as it could not be otherwise, he was the one who scored Macedonia's first goal in the competition. As a fun fact, in 2015, Pandev had decided to leave the national team in which he had debuted in 2001, but manager Igor Angelovski, newly arrived at the position of head coach of the team, convinced him to stay. Almost a fairy tale story - that is how a football legend is created in a small football country.