The national team of Yugoslavia has won the FIBA World Cup five times. The streak began in Ljubljana back in 1970.
Argentina was the host in 1950, Brazil in 1954, Chile in 1959, Brazil again in 1963, Uruguay in 1967, and then Yugoslavia. It is clear that the championship was specific in that it was played for the first time in Europe and outside South America territory.
In the previous few major competitions, Yugoslavia was chasing the brightest medal, but they did not manage to win it. This finally changed in 1970 in their favor.
As is the case with any team that combines high expectations with high quality, such circumstances are usually accompanied by pressure. It existed in the camp of Yugoslavia, which was evident at the start.
“A spectacle in America, but that welcome in Bled’s ‘Golf’…”
The 12 teams were divided into three groups, and the best two from each, along with the host, would compete in the final stage. Seven teams would play against each other and whoever had the best score in that group would win the gold.
Yugoslavia played against Italy in the first round and won after great battle. Final score was 66:63, but from that moment everything started much easier for the team led by Ranko Zeravica.
Brazil was outplayed by 25-point difference (80:55), Czechoslovakia by 10 (94:84), Uruguay by 18 (63:45), and after celebrating over the United States by 70:63, the long-awaited gold was secured. The competition system allowed Yugoslavia to endure defeat in the last round against the Soviet Union.
“In America, I knew that I was delighted by the spectacular American football and basketball games, but what I experienced on May 23, 1970 will be my favorite event for a long time. Especially the welcome at the “Golf” hotel in Bled.
Applause, folk costumes, music. From Ljubljana to Bled, applause, a slow bus ride and numerous congratulations. We no longer thought about the last game, about the great opponent, about the Soviet Union” – Kresimir Cosic will explain the reasons for the defeat in the last game.
Dragan Kapicic shared similar impressions after great success.
“We felt like big stars, wherever we appeared there was delirium. People shouted our names, tried to please us, carried us on their shoulders.
They threw themselves around our necks on the street, and upon returning to Belgrade, the people cheered for our gold and Yugoslavia. It was my most beautiful fairy tale. An unforgettable time.”
An inspiration for future generations
This is how the prophecy of one of the pioneers of Serbian basketball, Nebojsa Popovic, came true, to whom the famous sentence “We will be champions of the world” uttered in 1945.. Something similar was mentioned by the former coach of OFK Belgrade, Todor Lazic, right before the start of the championship.
“I claim that our national team players will win first place and a gold medal at this championship and that after that basketball will become the most popular sport in Yugoslavia.”
It turned out that both were right.
The team consisting of Ivo Daneu, Ljubodrag Simonovic, Kresimir Cosic, Damir Solman, Trajko Rajkovic, Ratko Tvrdic, Dragan Kapicic, Nikola Plecas, Petar Skansi, Aljosa Zorga, Dragutin Cermak and Vinko Jelovac inspired the following generations so much that the “harvest ” of gold medals lasted until 2002.
Absolute triumph and its symbolism
The golden generation instilled the cult of the national team in the packed hall in Tivoli (about 10,000 people), but also in the entire country. Contrary to the opinion of the romantics, it has been proven that even in those times, in which materialism had not yet prevailed, gold was needed in order for the whole story to gain momentum.
If by any chance a silver medal had happened, there would have been talk of a superb atmosphere and legends, but only an absolute triumph could lift Yugoslavia into a basketball powerhouse, after which the awareness of the game under hoops was established in these areas. This started the process in which the culture of Yugoslav basketball was equal to the culture of winning.
Former FIBA President Bora Stankovic also pointed out how significant this achievement was.
“That was a very important result. That’s life and that’s basketball. So much time has passed, so many events… That championship was, among others, perhaps the most important.”
RTS also wrote about success, emphasizing quantity as a prerequisite for results.
“On trees, flags, walls… Improvised baskets began to sprout, children asked their parents to enroll them in basketball, and quality was born from that mass. If the 60s and 70s were “silver”, the decade between 1970 and 1980 became golden.”
The gold medal that year was destined for Yugoslavia. A lot of symbolism was woven into the development path of the champion. A year before the start of the championship, they lost their friend and teammate, Radivoj Korac, in a car accident. The fact that despite him they managed to climb to the top of the world speaks about the quality of the team.
Finally, the best sportsman of Yugoslavia from 1967, Ivo Daneu, said goodbye to active basketball in his own hall in 1970. The epilogue simply could not be different.
“Your moon, our gold”
Or it could have been…
There was a possibility that Daneu would not play in Ljubljana. In the preparatory match against Crvena Zvezda, there was a conflict between him and Vladimir Cvetkovic.
“Cvetkovic provoked me the whole game. I told him not to do that, that he would be sorry. He didn’t listen. When he made a statement after the match, he said that he did it in an affect, came up with some strange explanation. I told Zeravica – either him or me.
He decided and I went to the championship, which will be remembered by the message of the fans ‘Your moon, our gold’” – Daneu alluded in an interview for Ekspres to the Americans as the main competitors, who had previously “conquered” the Moon.
A true indicator of team spirit
When you look at the statistics from the FIBA World Cup 1970 in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia did not look spectacular at all. Individually.
In the first 10 best scorers of the championship, there was not a single player from Zeravica’s team.
- Shin Dong-Pa (South Korea) 32.6
- Davis Peralta (Panama) 20.0
- Jiri Zidek Sr. (Czechoslovakia) 19.3
- Pedro Chappe Garcia (Cuba) 18.5
- Pedro Rivas (Panama) 18.5
- Lee In-Pyo (South Korea) 18
- Omar Arrestia (Uruguay) 17.7
- Luiz Claudio Menon (Brazil) 17.3
- Bob Molinski (Canada) 17.1
- Victor Hernandez (Uruguay) 16.5
In a head-to-head battle for second place, Brazil defeated the United States by 69:65 in a dramatic ending. It was their fifth medal in a row, while the United States went without a medal for the third consecutive time.
The Soviet Union won the bronze medal thanks to the already mentioned triumph against Yugoslavia in the last round.
All-Tournament Team: Kresimir Cosic (Yugoslavia) as Sergei Belov (Soviet Union), Modestas Paulauskas (Soviet Union), Ubiratan Pereira Maciel (Brazil) and Kenny Washington (United States).
Belov was awarded for the Most Valuable Player.
Yugoslavia will win four more world titles, with a break in the 80s, but that first one will always be seen as the beginning of the establishment of a dominant order in the World and European frameworks.
As a member of the champion generation, Duci Simonovic, said: “We didn’t play ordinary basketball. That was jazz basketball!”
The moon is yours, the gold is ours…