101 Greats of European Basketball

Vladimir Stankovic
The legendary Stankovic was very proud of that title
in Italy:
“Cantu was a small town and our title was a big sensation.
However, it established the foundations for a great
team in a small town that would later become European
champion. We played with three big men – Merlati, Burgess,
who had arrived from Real Madrid, and helped us a
lot on defense, and De Simone – and that was new. The
Italian press called these three players the ‘Cantu Wall’.
In the backcourt were two smaller men, one of them always
Recalcati, who ran a lot. And it worked.”
The league title in 1968 was the first in a successful
career for Carlo Recalcati. Before he retired in 1981, he
would win eight more: another league crown in 1975,
three Korac Cups, three Saporta Cups, and the Intercontinental
Cup of 1975. With seven titles in international
cups, he is one of the most decorated players in
European history.
Before that unforgettable 1967-68 season, Recalcati
had made his debut with the Italian senior national
team as well. On May 13, 1967, he played his first game
in Naples against Poland. That same year he played at
his first World Cup, in Uruguay, and scored his first 3
points with the national jersey against Mexico. He ended
up with an average of 7 points in that tournament.
That fall, still in 1967, he played the EuroBasket in Helsinki
(9.1 points) and in 1968 he represented Italy in the
Olympics in Mexico (9.1 points). In 1969 he was back to
Naples to play another EuroBasket (10.0 points) already
as a national team leader.
Recalcati’s career in the national team came to
an end in 1975 after 166 games and a total of 1,239
points. He had won two bronze medals, in the 1971
and 1975 EuroBaskets, and played in the 1970 World
Cup in Ljubljana. I am sure I had seen Recalcati during
those EuroBaskets or the Mexico Olympics, but my first
memory of him is from that Ljubljana tournament. In
a tense game between Italy and Yugoslavia, the latter
won 66-63 thanks only to the genius of Kresimir Cosic,
who had 27 points and 22 rebounds. Recalcati shined
for the Italian team with his 22 points including 4 of 4
free throws. His average in Ljubljana was 11.2 points.
Three-peat in the Korac Cup
After a discreet EuroBasket in 1971 (2.3 points but
with a bronze medal) Recalcati won his first international
trophy, the Korac Cup, in 1973. In a two-leg final,
Cantu defeated Maes Pils of Belgium 106-75 at home
with 21 points by Pierluigi Marzorati and 20 from Recalcati.
In the second game, the Belgian team won by just 9
points, 94-85, as Recalcati netted 30 points.
The following season, Cantu reached the final again
in the same competition, and this time the opponent
was Partizan Belgrade, coached by Ranko Zeravica,
with Dragan Kicanovic and Drazen Dalipagic as its main
weapons. It was a great showdown between probably
the best duos in Europe at that moment: Marzorati and
Recalcati against Kicanovic and Dalipagic. In the first
game, Cantu won at home 99-86 with 24 points by Recalcati,
22 by Bob Lienhard, 20 by Fabrizio Della Fiori and
18 by Marzorati. Kicanovic led Partizan with 24 points
and Dalipagic added 22. In the second game, Partizan
won 75-68, but it just couldn’t make up the point difference.
Dalipagic (25) and Kicanovic (22) were not enough
as Cantu had a better team and distributed points more
evenly: Marzorati and Antonio Farina had 18 points each
while Recalcati and Lienhard both scored 12.
The Korac Cup three-peat for Cantu and Recalcati
came in 1974-75. The opponent in the final was FC Barcelona,
with Zeravica on the bench. In Barcelona on March
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