Shkëndija Tetovo

Within a few years of taking the field, Shkëndija was gone. Yugoslav authorities dissolved the club in the early 1980s, uneasy about a side built openly around Tetovo's Albanian community, and it took the break-up of Yugoslavia and North Macedonia's independence to bring the shirt back, in 1992 — the same red and black the club had worn since it was formed in 1979.

Supporters still call the team Kuq e Zi, the Reds and Blacks, and the fixture against Teteks, the other club in Tetovo, carries the same line the authorities once tried to erase: Shkëndija's crowd is Albanian, Teteks' is Macedonian. The derby left its own scar in the 2012/13 Macedonian Cup final between the two sides, abandoned after nationalist chanting from the stands.

Shkëndija had won its first league championship two seasons earlier, in 2010/11, but that same troubled year brought the club to the edge of bankruptcy. It was rescued and reorganised in August 2013 with backing from Ecolog International, the company whose name has sat on the 15,000-seat Ecolog Arena in Tetovo ever since. The rebuilt club went on to dominate the league, taking titles in 2017/18, 2018/19, 2020/21 and 2024/25, along with two Macedonian Cups and a national Super Cup.

The ground that carries the rescuer's name is also the one where the club that was once banned from playing at all now plays every home match it has.