The competition begins with 22 teams. Framed in six groups of four and three teams, the champion of each group would qualify for the final league
After the first phase the regular league is played by the two Spanish representatives REAL MADRID and JOVENTUT, VARESE, MACCABI, OLYMPIACOS and BOSNA SARAJEVO. 10 days will decide the first two, which will play the grand final. There was a great equality, Joventut and Olympiacos were quickly left behind but between Varese, Bosna, Real Madrid and Maccabi reigned a great equality until the end. Finally, VARESE and BOSNA came first and second, and the final will be played in the French city of Grenoble.
Bosna Sarajevo confirmed their excellent campaign based on courage, ambition, drive and a very serious basketball that won against all odds to the greatest Italian experience. Varajić (45 points, with 14 out of 22 from two shots and 17 out of 21 from free throws) and Delibašić (30 points, with 14 out of 23 from two shots) were the two biggest Yugoslavian stars, who together with the darkest -but equally practical- Radovanović, Bosiočić, Benaček and company destroyed the defence of Emerson, whose great figures (Ossola, Yelverton, Morse) blamed the weight of the years (not to mention the disappointment of Meneghin, who arrived injured in the final). Although the differences were never excessive, the Italian team was always in tow of Bosna, who with his victory injected new sap in continental basketball.
Although Yugoslavia had become the absolute dominator of European basketball at the national team level during the 1970s, their clubs, paradoxically, had not yet managed to register for the European Cup, and the Bosnian champion of Sarajevo had to be the first to do so. Bosna’s triumph was clearly the result of a game more cerebral than that of their rivals. After the first ten minutes of the match, ‘in which the Yugoslavs reached a maximum advantage of eight points (16-8, min. 4), they entered a very balanced phase, in which Emerson, thanks largely to the change of Ossola for Colombo, leveled this disadvantage to even get ahead on the scoreboard (31-36, min. 16). However, a final boost from Bosna allowed him to reach the break with a two-point lead (45-43).
The second half continued in the same vein as the first, i.e. Bosna’s slight advantages and Emerson’s continuous draws. When, four minutes after the restart, Carraria was eliminated by personnel, Rusconi decided to give entry to Meneghin (still recovering from an injury), who got his first shots right and allowed the Varese to remain hooked to the game. However, halfway through this second half came the definitive hatching of Varajić, which began to pull the Yugoslav cart to a maximum advantage of thirteen points (90-77) with three minutes to go. Although Rusconi had ordered a change of zonal defense 2-3 to individual to initiate a desperate pressure to all track, the effort of the Italian team was finally useless against a Bosna who knew how to handle perfectly the last bars of the game.
