article by Nicola Pucci
Since volleyball has known its continental approval with the establishment of its own competitionstarting from 1948 when Rome organized the first edition of the European Championships, only two Western national teams were able to get on the podium, France and Italy second and third respectively in the capital behind Czechoslovakia, and the same transalpines three years later, when they in turn organized the event in Paris, finally settling for third place behind the USSR and Bulgaria. After that, the Eastern European teams stamp their mark and their indisputable dominance on the next 10 competitions, occupying the first three places in their entirety, with the USSR first consecutively between 1967 and 1983, Czechoslovakia again triumphing in 1955 in Bucharest and in 1958 in Prague, and Romania making the 1963 European Championships their own, once again played at home. Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia are not yet capable of winning, but they often make an act of presence on the podium, and it is logical, when from 29 September 1985 to 6 October the main event of the Old Continent is played in five cities in Holland for edition number 14, which there is very little chance that titles and medals will escape the teams representing the countries beyond the Wall.
Effectively no parameter seems to be able to work in favor of France and Italythe only two Western national teams to have reached the podium, much less the Dutch hosts themselves, Spain, and two teams such as Greece and Swedenwhose geographical location may be outside the orbit “socialist“. Right, coach Silvano Prandi’s Azzurri won bronze in the last major event of international volleyball, the 1984 Los Angeles Olympicsbut that very event was marked by the counterboycott of the Soviet bloc, and therefore no Eastern European team was allowed to participate.
The 12 teams are divided into three days of 4, and if the first two classified will make up the final poule of 6 (bringing with them the result obtained with the opponent of the initial group) and the others the poule for the placings from seventh in 12th place, the predictions reasonably divert the eastern sextets towards the higher areas of the rankings and the western ones towards the lower ones.
A trick of the draw, or luck, you name it, but he wants it right Italy should not only make up Group 1, that of the highly favored USSR, but Sweden and Greece should also be included together with the two, and it is precisely the set won/set lost coefficient that allows the Azzurri to pass the round as second of the group, compared to the easy victory against the Greeks (3-0, with scores of 15-7 15-9 15-12), the predictable but close defeat against the Soviets (3-1, 16-14 15-13 13 -15 15-12) and the unexpected slip with the Scandinavians (3-2, 14-16 15-8 15-6 5-15 15-13), with the latter paying dearly for the knockout suffered in the previous match with Greece.
In Group 2, Czechoslovakia in turn makes a loud statementwith 3 successes in as many matches, leaving Poland and Romania to fight each other for second place which guarantees admission to the medal pool, with finally the Poles prevailed thanks to a clear 3-0 victory in the direct match.
The surprise, if we can speak of surprise, then comes from Group 3, the one in which coach Jean-Marc Buchel’s France plays. And here a nice parenthesis really needs to be opened, because it is good that we know that the transalpines, among whose ranks champions of the caliber of Philippe Blain, Laurent Tillie and Alain Fabiani play, who a few years later will come to practice their profession in the Italian championship, they easily won the 6 qualifying matches for the final phase of the European Championships (including the one with the dangerous East Germany), e in Holland they continue on their positive streakoverwhelming Bulgaria on their debut (3-0 with scores of 15-11 15-8 and even 15-1!), and then also outclassing the Netherlands (3-0, 15-4 15-5 15-2) and Yugoslavia (3-1, 15-9 16-14, 9-15, 15-13), with Dimitar Zlatanov’s team to secure qualification in the last, dramatic challenge with the “orange“, resolved in a comeback in the decisive set (15-13 6-15 6-15 15-10 15-13).
And so, among the six teams that will compete for the title and the other steps of the podium, we find 4 representatives of Eastern volleyball (USSR, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Bulgaria) and 2 Western ones, not surprisingly Italy and Franceteams that in ancient times were the only ones capable of snatching a medal from the socialist contingent.
To tell the truth, Italy, which is made up of the same team that played the year before at the Los Angeles Olympics and which, among others, includes Bertoli and Dametto, De Luigi and Errichiello, Lanfranco and Rebaudengo, Vullo and Babini , Milocco (the only new face, instead of “Abundant” Dall’Olio) and Vecchi and the two Lucchettas, Andrea and Pier Paolo, plays at the rear, losing all the matches, but the honor “western” is held very high by France, who are competing for the podium behind the USSR and Czechoslovakia, undoubtedly the two strongest teams in the lot.
While the hammer-and-sickle sextet of coach Vyacheslav Platonov, who has a star of dazzling brilliance in Aleksandr Savinin Viacheslav Zaitsev, father of Ivan, the first player to play as a professional in a championship abroad (in Italy, in Marconi Spoleto, where he arrived in 1987), and in Yurij Pancenko, Valerij Losev and Jaroslav Antonov other valid players to the point of guaranteeing a contract in the Bel Paese in the future, in fact it goes to win his 11th continental title, ninth in a rowalready resolving with the Czechs in the first match with a round 3-0 (15-8 15-10 16-14) and then also getting the better of Bulgaria (which snatched a set), Poland and France, the transalpines competed with Poland for the third step of the podium, ultimately prevailing 3-1 (15-10 16-14 7-15 15-6) which gives coach Buchel’s boys, passing through a 3-1 victory also in the “derby” with the blues, that one medal that had been missing for 34 years.
A case? No, really, before the wind of the Western revolution brought from Julio Velasco’s Italy blows in Europe and his “generation of phenomena“, and the Wall will be torn down by the march of history, the level volleyball had bleu-blanc-rouge traces.
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