On April 15, 1993, the Cercle Saint-Pierre inscribed its name in the Pantheon of French sport by dominating, to everyone's surprise, the Final Four of the European Cup of Basketball Champions Clubs, in Athens.

A coronation unimaginable a few years earlier, "beyond all expectations", according to Dacoury, despite the national domination of the club marked by two trebles in the 1980s (1983 to 1985 and 1988 to 1990).

The CSP even forged a record on the continental scene, but at the lower level, the Korac Cup (1982 and 1983).

One man will upset the trajectory of the Limoges club: Božidar Maljković.

"He arrived all crowned with his two titles with Split (former Yugoslavia) and this know-how," recalls Dacoury. He passed that on to us: a form of confidence in the coach, in his experience, in his knowledge and that was a decisive advantage in our progress."

An aerial winger with a spectacular game, Dacoury discovered the rigor of a workaholic coach.

"Hard, it's easy for him"

"Dur is not in his vocabulary. Hard, it's easy for him," smiles "Flying Dac", emblem of the club where he spent 18 seasons.

"In the offseason, we spent a month of unimaginable preparation in terms of intensity, pace, work. At that time, he built the team that would become European champions. We didn't know it yet, even though we realized from the first game that we had a team of fire."

Thanks in particular to the contribution of Michael Young, a wonderful American scorer but a soloist and limited defensively, to the point of making Dacoury doubt: "Before recruiting Michael Young, +Boža+ shows me the images of an American player he thought he could recruit. I see this player who was shooting from all sides, who made absolutely no passes, and inside, I say to myself: +As long as I don't play with this guy+."

CSP Limoges' American winger Michael Young against Treviso in the European Cup final on April 15, 1993 in Athens © Olivier MORIN / AFP/Archives

"This is the strength of Maljković, who has the eye of an extraordinary technician able to see how this or that element could fit together and how the whole thing could work."

The team built by "Boža" then crushed the France Championship, but lost its first European Cup matches. A victory in Badalone (Spain) finally puts the Limougeauds on the right track. They will not stop.

"The confidence has grown as the pools go on, culminating in the support match in the quarter-final against Olympiakos, which we win by two points on a shot by Jurij Zdovc. We had a match of crazy intensity and suspense and I think it was at the end of this match that we really realized that anything was possible."

'Ignored by the press'

The Dacoury gang gets its ticket to Athens, with a busy schedule: Real Madrid of Lithuanian pivot Arvydas Sabonis in the semifinals, before a possible final against PAOK Thessaloniki, not far from its bases, or Treviso, led by its Croatian star, Toni Kukoc.

Limoges arrives in total indifference in the middle of these giants.

The triumph of CSP Limoges Richard Dacoury winner of Benetton Trevised 59-55 in the final of the European Cup, April 15, 1993 in Athens © OLIVIER MORIN / AFP/Archives

"We were totally ignored by the press," Dacoury recalls. We were there to play our best, with Maljković saying he didn't see how we couldn't win this tournament because we were the best, the best prepared both physically and tactically."

On the eve of the semi-final, "Boža" brought his method to the climax by inflicting on his players a "crazy training".

"He forced us to train for two hours thoroughly. The privileged people who were in the room looked at us with dumbfounded eyes and said to themselves: +But what is happening to them? Do they know that the match takes place the next day and not the day after?+."

No matter, Dacoury, Frédéric Forte, Jim Bilba and Michael Young dismissed Real (62-52), then beat Treviso in the final (59-55) despite a fabulous end of the match by Kukoc.

Forte, manager and defensive leader of the team, managed, during the last possession of the match, to steal the ball from the hands of the Croatian genius and record the victory of his own, a "gesture that will remain in history," says Dacoury.

© 2023 AFP