Vardar lead Prva MFL clubs on Google while Shkëndija lead the league

Shkëndija lead North Macedonia’s top flight after eight matches, with 19 points. Vardar sit third on 14, behind Struga on goal difference. The Football Federation of Macedonia’s table also has Tikvesh and Shkëndija Haraçinë on 13 points.

A FootyCabin analysis of Google search interest in North Macedonian football shows a different hierarchy.

An analysis of Google Trends data covering approximately 20 August to 20 September places Vardar clearly first among the ten Prva MFL clubs. After two overlapping Google Trends comparisons are calibrated onto the same scale, Vardar’s relative search index is set at 100 and Shkëndija stand at 61.8.

That means Vardar generated roughly 62 per cent more indexed search interest than Shkëndija over the period.

Prva MFL performance versus Google search interest

League positions and points are those published by the Football Federation of Macedonia on 20 September. Struga, Arsimi, Bregalnica and Skopje had played seven matches rather than eight.

The precise ordering among the low-volume clubs should be treated cautiously. A difference between an index of 2.0 and 2.3 is not particularly meaningful.

The gaps at the top are different.

Vardar and Shkëndija are separated by a wide margin, while Bashkimi stand well clear of the remaining clubs despite sitting ninth in the league.

Struga provide the inverse example. They are second in the championship with 14 points but only ninth in the search ranking.

Google Trends cannot establish which club has the most supporters. It measures relative search interest rather than attendance, fandom or absolute search volume. Google says its data are based on a sample of searches, normalised for time and geography and then scaled from zero to 100.

What the ranking can show is where online attention is concentrated.

Six overlapping clubs make the ten-team comparison possible

The ten clubs could not all be placed into a single Google Trends comparison, so they were split across two searches.

Six clubs appeared in both:

• Shkëndija
• Struga
• Vardar
• Tikvesh
• Shkëndija Haraçinë
• Sileks

That overlap provides a way to test whether the two comparisons can reasonably be combined.

Average Google Trends scores for the six overlapping clubs

The overall relationship is extremely stable.

The correlation between the six club averages across the two comparisons is approximately 0.9995, while the calculated scale adjustment between the datasets is only around 0.7 per cent.

Struga varies more in percentage terms, but that is largely because its underlying figures are extremely small: moving from 0.43 to 0.67 looks large proportionally while remaining a tiny absolute change.

For Vardar, Shkëndija, Tikvesh, Sileks and Shkëndija Haraçinë, the results are almost identical across the two searches.

That overlap is why the four clubs appearing in only one comparison can reasonably be placed on the same ten-club scale.

Google currently permits comparisons of up to eight groups in its newer Trends interface.

Vardar-Shkëndija produced the biggest search spike

The clearest example of how attention moves around Macedonian football came on 9 August.

Vardar hosted Shkëndija at the Todor Proeski Arena. Shkëndija won 2-0, with Fabrice Tamba scoring both goals. Shkëndija’s official match record confirms the date, venue and result.

On the same day, Shkëndija reached 100, the maximum value in their three-month Google Trends series.

Vardar reached 96.

No Shkëndija European fixture during the same period produced a comparable search level.

Shkëndija’s major matchdays on Google

UEFA confirms Shkëndija’s European fixture dates, including the Hibernian matches on 6 and 13 August. Shkëndija’s own archive records the Bravo and Hibernian results.

The domestic meeting therefore generated almost 89 per cent more indexed Shkëndija search interest than the return leg against Hibernian.

That does not prove the Vardar match had a larger audience, nor that supporters valued it more highly. Search activity can be influenced by media coverage, unusual incidents and other events around a fixture.

But within this dataset the conclusion is straightforward: Vardar-Shkëndija was Shkëndija’s largest Google search day of the summer.

Bashkimi lead the Kumanovo comparison

The strongest local result appears in Kumanovo.

In the Google Trends comparison containing Bashkimi, Vardar and Shkëndija, Bashkimi generated the highest share of relative search interest.

Search interest in Kumanovo

That is a notable contrast with the league table.

Bashkimi have four points from eight matches, with one win, one draw and six defeats. Their goal difference is minus 18.

Yet in their home municipality they still outrank Vardar and Shkëndija for search interest over the month studied.

The data should not be translated into supporter percentages. Google’s regional figures represent the relative popularity of the terms being compared within that location, not the proportion of residents who support each team.

The defensible conclusion is narrower: Bashkimi were the leading club in this Google Trends comparison in Kumanovo despite their poor league position.

Vardar lead Skopje, but Shkëndija are close

Skopje tells a different story.

Vardar lead the capital, but not by anything approaching the margin seen in the national ranking.

Search interest in Skopje

The other overlapping comparison produced virtually the same result at the top: Vardar 48, Shkëndija 39.

That consistency is more significant than the small readings for the clubs further down.

Skopje result across both comparisons

Vardar are therefore clearly first in Skopje, but Shkëndija’s search presence is substantial.

That matters because Vardar’s national dominance might otherwise be assumed to come simply from overwhelming control of the capital. The regional data suggest a more competitive picture.

Four findings from the data

The data therefore describe a league with two different hierarchies.

Shkëndija currently lead where football is ultimately decided: on the pitch.

Vardar lead the competition for search attention.

Bashkimi remain highly visible in Kumanovo despite poor results, while Struga’s strong league position has not translated into comparable national search interest.

And the meeting between Vardar and Shkëndija generated a larger search response than Shkëndija’s European ties.

The Prva MFL table measures performance. Google Trends measures attention. In the opening months of the 2026-27 season, the two look strikingly different.