JORDI VILLACAMPA - 101 Greats of European Basketball

Jordi
Villacampa
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The 8 who was a
perfect 10
December 22, 1997, was a day to celebrate
a basketball great. Thousands
of loyal fans packed Pavello Olimpic in
Badalona, Spain, to pay homage to Jordi
Villacampa, one of Joventut Badalona’s
biggest legends. With the club’s ecstatic
fans, and in the presence of his many friends and most
influential coaches – including Lolo Sainz, Zeljko Obradovic
and Alfred Julbe – the great Penya captain scored
his last baskets as an active player. With a three-way
tourney between Joventut 1997, Joventut 1994 and FC
Barcelona, Villacampa’s No. 8 jersey was retired and a
brilliant career came to an end.
Today it’s almost impossible for an elite player to
spend his whole career with the same club. Those types
of relationships simply do not exist anymore. But Jordi
Villacampa would not have had it any other way. He was
a Joventut player for life, from the junior teams to his
debut in the first team at age 16 until he retired at 35.
He left behind 17 seasons, 506 games in the Spanish
League and 8,991 points scored. That still stands as
the second-best points total all-time in Spain, behind
Alberto Herreros and his 9,759 points, although Villacampa’s
scoring average of 17.77 points per game was
better and ranks seventh in Spanish League history.
A Korac Cup champion at 17
As a teenager, Villacampa worked his way into the
Joventut rotation and into club history. On March 19,
1981, at the Palau Blaugrana – the home of FC Barcelona
– Joventut played for a continental trophy in the
Korac Cup final. The opponent, Reyer Venezia of Italy,
was led by the fearsome duo of Drazen Dalipagic and
Spencer Haywood. After a very close duel that saw a
92-92 tie lead to overtime, Joventut won by the slimmest
of margins, 105-104. That was the first trophy for
a very young Villacampa, who was not yet 18, having
been born on October 11, 1963, in Reus, Spain. Villacampa
didn’t score in the four minutes he played in the
final, but his head coach, Manel Comas, knew that he
had a star in the making. Earlier that season, Villacampa
had cracked the rotation and was getting minutes
every game. He scored his first 4 points in the Korac
Cup on January 21, 1981, in a Joventut win at Villeurbanne.
Later he scored 8 against Sunair Oostende and
2 points against Crvena Zvezda.
Seven years later, on March 16, 1988, in Grenoble,
France, Villacampa lost a European final. Joventut
came up short 96-89 after overtime in the Saporta Cup
final against Limoges. Villacampa led his team with 19
points, Reggie Johnson added 18 and veteran Josep
Maria Margall had 14 points. The Limoges trio formed
by Don Collins (28 points), Stephane Ostrowski (23
points, 11 rebounds) and Clarence Kea (22 points, 8
rebounds) destroyed Joventut’s European dream.
One year later Joventut reached the Korac Cup finals
against a Scavolini Pesaro side coached by a young
Sergio Scariolo and led by Walter Magnifico, Ario Costa
and the excellent American duo formed by Darwin Cook
and Darren Daye. Joventut managed to score two wins:
99-98 in Pesaro and 96-86 in Badalona. In the first duel,
Villacampa scored 29 points and in the second 22.
He was backed by Jose Antonio Montero (21 and 28)
and Lemone Lampley (21 and 17). Through these three
101 greats of european basketball
Jordi Villacampa
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of 1985, 1987, 1991 (bronze medal) and 1993 and the
World Cups of 1986, 1990 and 1994. In the 1990 edition,
he scored 48 points against Venezuela, which is
still the Spanish national team record. But his brilliant
career could have been even greater with an Olympic
medal.
Vladimir Stankovic
finals, Jordi Villacampa turned into a great player, the
leader of a new generation for Joventut and an important
piece on the Spanish national team.
Villacampa made his debut in a national team jersey
on April 27, 1984, in a tournament in Linares, Spain,
where he scored his first 10 points against Poland.
Spain had an impressive team, with Nacho Solozabal,
Andres Jimenez, Juanma Lopez Iturriaga, Juan Antonio
Corbalan, Fernando Romay and Jose Luis Llorente,
among others. It was the same team that would go on
to win the 1984 Olympic silver medal in Los Angeles.
National team coach Antonio Diaz Miguel decided to
leave Villacampa off his final team for the Olympics,
but after that, Villacampa became a mainstay for Spain
and featured in both the Seoul 1988 and Barcelona
1992 Olympic squads. He also played the EuroBaskets
An ideal shooting guard
Standing 1.96 meters tall, Villacampa had the perfect
build for the wing positions. He was fast and could
run the break very well, but his main weapon was his
shot. He had a great touch and was one of the first
players to really take advantage of the three-point rule
introduced in 1984. In the golden years of Joventut,
1990-91 (Spanish League champions after beating
FC Barcelona 3-1) and 1991-92 (champions again, 3-2
against Real Madrid) Villacampa was the undisputed
leader of the team. Yes, he had excellent teammates
in Rafa and Tomas Jofresa, Ferran Martinez, Corny
Thompson, Harold Pressley, Mike Smith and Juanan
Morales, but on every team there is a boss, and it was
clear that Villacampa was the leader for Penya.
Joventut reached the 1992 EuroLeague final but
lost against Partizan Belgrade, 71-70, on the famous
three-pointer by Sasha Djordjevic with a few seconds
left on the clock. Villacampa played all 40 minutes in
that game and scored 13 points, dished 1 assist and
picked up 4 steals, but it was not enough. Somehow,
however, sporting justice was made for this excellent
generation of Joventut players. Two years later, at the
Tel Aviv Final Four, Joventut was in the final again, this
time against Olympiacos Piraeus. Penya took the win
this time also by a narrow 59-57 margin behind 16
points by Villacampa in 35 minutes. The dream was
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Caceres in the title game, 79-71. However, Villacampa’s
role in that team had dwindled and he did not have
much presence in the final.
After he retired, as if 17 years with the club were not
enough, Jordi Villacampa took a position on the club’s
board of directors as vice president and was finally
elected president on November 29, 1999, a position he
held for 17 years. Under his mandate, Joventut experienced
a second golden era, the highlight of which was,
without a doubt, the double crown of the 2007-08 season
with the Spanish King’s Cup and the Eurocup Cup
titles, the latter against a nearby opponent, Akasvayu
Girona, by a commanding 79-54 in the final. That win
granted the team a berth in the 2008-09 EuroLeague.
However, there was yet another success, even bigger,
with the everlasting creation of talents at the Joventut
Badalona basketball school. The latest examples
were Rudy Fernandez and Ricky Rubio, two players who
have had important roles both at the highest European
club level and with the Spanish national team. They had
to leave the club for their own sporting ambitions, but
there is no doubt that the Badalona system will produce
new wonders in no time.
Jordi Villacampa; He wore number 8, but on and off
the floor, he’s a perfect 10!
Jordi Villacampa
fulfilled: Jordi Villacampa and his lifelong club were European
champions.
Villacampa played three more seasons after that
and managed to win another important trophy: the
Spanish Kings’ Cup. In the tournament played in Leon,
Joventut bested Caja San Fernando, Leon and finally
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