Zoran Slavnic (left) and Dragan Kicanovic

Volleyball in Liege

Never before and long after Liege 1977 have the Yugoslav basketball players so convincingly won the gold medal on the European championships.

In the qualifying group, the Yugoslav performance was variable, they were defeated by the Czech national team, but it later turned out that this was only the warming up for the upcoming major games.

After defeating Italy in the semi-finals, Yugoslavia, in an uninteresting final match in which it led by 23 points, easily defeated the USSR with the result of 74-61 (42-27). The superiority of the Yugoslav on one, and the weakness of the Soviet team on the other hand, was best demonstrated in the last minute of the match, when the guards of the Yugoslav national team, Zoran Slavnic and Dragan Kicanovic, at the reaching distance of the Soviet players, exchanged several short passes, which resembled more volleyball than basketball. Aside from the mentioned two and Dalipagic, a great performance was offered by centers, who completely blocked the, at the time, new hope of the Soviet basketball, a center Tkacenko, 2.22 meters tall.

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