PIERLUIGI MARZORATI - 101 Greats of European Basketball

Pierluigi
Marzorati
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A Cantu legend
When Bennet Cantu rejoined the
EuroLeague for a couple of seasons
earlier this decade and I
saw again the great atmosphere
in the arena there, it was time
to remember the greatest star
ever for that club, Pierluigi Marzorati.
A historic club from a small town near Milan, Cantu
has 12 international trophies – two EuroLeagues Cups,
four Saporta Cups, four Korac Cups and two Intercontinental
Cups – not to mention three Italian Leagues
and four Italian Cups. If someone only looks at the list
of the winners of the old European competitions, he
could become confused by the variety of names beside
Cantu: Forst, Squib, Ford, Gabetti, Clear. But all of them
refer to the same club, Pallacanestro Cantu. The glory
of this humble club, founded in 1936, started with its
first Italian League trophy in 1968. Borislav Stankovic,
the future Secretary General of FIBA, was on the bench
and Carlo Recalcati was the best player. The following
season, at only 17 years old, a youngster named Pierluigi
Marzorati arrived to the team. He was considered a
great prospect for Italian basketball, and with his arrival,
a golden era of Cantu basketball was ready to begin.
Twelve titles
Behind a skinny body, 1.87 meters tall, one could
find in Pierluigi Marzorati, who was born on September
12, 1952, a scorer with great technique and a passer
with heavenly court vision. Marzorati was one of those
point guards who could score 25 points if necessary or
just a couple if, on those nights, his teammates needed
only to follow his perfect floor generalship and assists.
Upon arrival in Cantu, Marzorati formed a lethal guard
duo with Recalcati. Over the next years, many good
foreigners arrived to help build the great Cantu, but
that Marzorati-Recalcati tandem, backed by several
more good Italian players, was the key to success. The
foreigners came and went, but Marzorati and his Italian
teammates were always there.
The first big success for the humble club was the
1973 Korac Cup. Under the name Forst Pallacanestro,
the team from Cantu beat Maes Pils of Belgium in two
games, with Recalcati (30 points) and Bill Drozdiak (24)
as the stars, but Marzorati was already an important
player. The following season, Forst defended the title
by beating Partizan Belgrade in the final. In Cantu, they
won 99-86 and in Belgrade, Cantu prevailed again 75-
68. That was the first time I saw Marzorati live. In 1975,
Forst took its third straight Korac Cup, this time against
FC Barcelona, winning 71-69 in Barcelona, with 16
points from Marzorati, and then by 110-85 at home as
the great guard scored 27 points. That same year, at the
EuroBasket played in Yugoslavia, I saw Marzorati with
the Italian national team and I remember a close, 69-
65 defeat to the USSR despite his 14-point effort. I saw
him again in March 1977 on neutral ground in Palma de
Mallorca, Spain, when Forst won its first Saporta Cup,
beating Radnicki Belgrade 87-86 despite a great game
by Srecko Jaric, the father of Marko Jaric, who scored
30 points. Radnicki’s second-best scorer in that game
was the late Milun Marovic (29 points), an engineer like
Marzorati, who died in 2009 in a car accident in Libya.
We met again at the 1977 EuroBasket in Liege,
Belgium, where Italy reached the semis; at the 1980
Olympics in Moscow (the final was an 86-77 Yugoslavia
101 greats of european basketball
Pierluigi Marzorati
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Vladimir Stankovic
win over Italy); and at the 1981 EuroBasket in Nantes
(Italy’s first win against Spain by the score of 105-96
featured 12 points from Marzorati). Between 1977
and 1981, Cantu – under the names Forst, Gabetti and
Squib – played five Saporta Cup finals and won four of
them, losing only to its archrival, Varese, by 90-88 after
overtime. In all of those finals, Marzorati had a protagonist’s
role, together with Recalcati, Antonello Riva,
Fabrizio Della Fiori, Renzo Bariviera, John Newman,
Tom Boswell and Bruce Flowers. In the 1981 final, Cantu
defeated the Barcelona team of Juan Antonio San Epifanio,
Joan Creus, Nacho Solozabal, Chicho Sibilio, Jeff
Ruland and Mike Phillips.
But the best years for Cantu were yet to come. After
a first failed attempt in 1975-76, when the team reached
the semifinals but lost to its nemesis Varese, and after
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having just lifted its third Italian League trophy, Cantu
managed to win the EuroLeague in 1982 by beating
Maccabi Tel Aviv in the final 86-80 on March 25 of that
year. Charles Kupec and Bruce Flowers were the best
scorers, with 23 and 21 points, respectively, but the
man of the game was Marzorati, who scored 18 points
and won his particular duel with Maccabi playmaker
Motti Aroesti.
In the 1982-83 season, Ford Cantu played the EuroLeague
as the defending champion. Milano had won
the Italian League that year, so two Italian teams were
in the competition and they happened to meet in the title
game. After a 40-minute drama, Cantu escaped with
a 69-68 victory after a missed shot by Franco Boselli
with 3 seconds to go and a legendary block by Jim
Brewer on Vittorio Gallinari after his own offensive rebound.
Cantu was the back-to-back continental champion.
Cantu’s list of trophies was completed with two
Intercontinental Cups, in1975 and 1982. The pictures
of the great captain Marzorati with the trophy have a
privileged spot in the club offices nowadays.
Comeback at 54 years old
Pierluigi Marzorati played with Pallacanestro Cantu
from 1969 to 1991. He won 12 trophies, played 692
games and scored 8,659 points. He also scored 2,209
points in 278 Italian national team games. Looking at
the calendar, he played for the club of his life during
four different decades. In October of 2006, for the 70th
anniversary of the club, Marzorati came back to play
against Benetton Treviso at the age of 54. He spent less
than 2 minutes on the court, but Cantu won 70-69 and
its gesture to the great captain remains as a curiosity
for the history books.
After his retirement, Cantu had suffered a lot and
even descended into second division in 1994. The recovery
was slow, but eventually, Bennet Cantu managed
to reach two finals in Italy and earned the right to return
to the EuroLeague. Marzorati blamed the problems of
Cantu on the Bosman ruling and the excessive number
of foreign players, which closed the door for many
national talents. When I spoke to him not long ago, he
had no doubt that the best players of his era could have
played in the NBA with no problems. He didn’t want to
give me any names, but he highlighted his great rivals
Dragan Kicanovic and Juan Antonio Corbalan. While he
was still playing, Marzorati finished his degree in engineering.
Upon retirement, he formed his own company.
He did not have any role in the club, but he never misses
a Cantu game, if he can help it.
Perluigi Marzorati, a Cantu legend.
101 greats of european basketball
Pierluigi Marzorati
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