Belgium will travel to Skopje on Friday to take on North Macedonia to kick off their 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign. The hosts have already played two qualifiers, having beaten Liechtenstein and drawn with Wales in the previous matchdays.

North Macedonia are dreaming of reaching their first World Cup final, with their only previous major tournament appearance coming at Euro 2020.

They qualified from League C with 16 points from six games in the final months of the 2024 Nations League, bringing strong momentum into the 2026 qualifying campaign. North Macedonia opened their World Cup qualifying campaign with a 3-0 home win over Liechtenstein in March. However, they failed to pull off another win against Wales, with Bojan Miovski's 91st-minute goal cancelled out by David Brooks' 96th-minute equaliser in a dramatic 1-1 draw that leaves North Macedonia level on four points with the Dragons in Group J.

While they missed out on a valuable win, the result at least extended their unbeaten run to eight games, meaning a year has passed since they lost to the Czech Republic in a friendly in June 2024. In fact, they haven't lost a competitive match since a 5-2 defeat to Italy in a Euro 2024 qualifier in November 2023, but are aware that their impressive unbeaten run could be threatened by Belgium, who are eighth in the FIFA World Rankings, 59 places above North Macedonia.

Rudi Garcia took over as Belgium head coach following the sacking of Domenico Tedesco earlier this year following poor results in the 2024 Euros and 2024-25 Nations League. Belgium failed to make the last 16 of the Euros and ended up in the relegation play-offs in the Nations League group after losing four of their six Group A2 games.

Garcia started his tenure with a 3-1 loss to Ukraine in the play-offs but then won the second leg 3-0, maintaining Belgium's record of playing in all the Nations Leagues as an A team. The Frenchman will now focus on Belgium's quest for a fourth consecutive World Cup, with the Red Devils favourites to win their qualifying group, which includes North Macedonia, Wales, Kazakhstan and Liechtenstein.

Belgium, who have struggled in recent away games, will travel to the North Macedonian capital looking to pick up their first away win since beating Austria 3-2 in a Euro 2024 qualifier in October 2023. Belgium have won three of their four meetings with North Macedonia (D1), including two previous away games, a 5-0 win in a Euro qualifier in June 1995 and a 2-0 win in a World Cup qualifier in March 2013.

North Macedonia predicted starting lineup:

Dmitriyevski; Zaikov, Musliu, Manev; Ilievski, Alimi, Kostadinov, Alioski; Baldi; Elmas Miovski

Belgium predicted starting lineup:

Sells; Meunier, Faith, Debast, De Kuiper; De Bruyne, Onana, Tielemans; Trossard, Doku, Lukaku