Moscow hosted the final of 6th European Team Championship and it was clear sign of who is the favourite to take gold medals. The Soviet team, moreover, did not struggle for Championship final place since they qualified by default as title holders. Of other teams, England narrowly overcame Holland who dropped as much as 5½ point vs Wales. Hungary and Romania easily wiped out pack of Western European teams. Czechoslovakia defeated Poland and Sweden (to whom they lost, though) in probably the strongest preliminary group. Apart from the USSR Yugoslavia (9 GMs in the squad) and Hungary (8 GMs) were listed as main contenders. None of European's top players was missing.

The Soviets started impressively hammering Czechoslovakia (five wins and three draws) and Yugoslavia beat Hungary despite Portisch's good win over Ljubojević. The Balkan nations, Romania and Bulgaria beat the Western sides surprisingly easy. Yugoslavia's decent performance of round 1 was overshadowed by round two debacle against the Soviets. West Germany enjoyed big win over depressed Czech and Slovaks. Bulgaria's 4½-3½ over Czechoslovakia on day three let the Bulgarian surprise to move into the sole third, although far behind the USSR and Hungary. Round 4 wrote the last chapter of the championship run story as the Soviets defeated Hungary by clear 6-2 to unanimously overwhelm the rest of the teams. Yugoslavia narrowly ran over Bulgaria but did not manage to catch up with them. Yugoslavia did even worse on day five losing to progressing Czechoslovakia as Romania and Hungary won their respective matches and moved into tied second. In round six Bulgaria held Hungary to draw while Romania and Yugoslavia won 5-3 each. With one round to go standings were: USSR (stepping from one win to another) 35½; Romania 26½; Hungary 25½; Yugoslavia 24½. In the decisive battle Hungary easily ran over Czechoslovakia 5½-2½ which proved ample loan for silver medal as Romania lost to Yugoslavia by the same margin and fell down to fourth. Germany and Bulgaria finished in shared fifth place while Czechoslovakia, who needed time to get some engine power managed to overcome England.

Team USSR, the home squad, earned huge advantage over the rest and produced one of best ever ETCh shows scoring fabulous 74.5% with just two game loses. Newly crowned World Champion Karpov won in brilliant style his five games and then took a rest. Tseshkovsky, one of reserve players, scored 4½/5. Hungary relied on Portisch and Ribli (board prize). Yugoslavia came third and did not manage to deny the Hungarians as they lacked leadership (Gligorić's 2½/7 cannot be taken seriously of course). Czech expatriate Ludek Pachman was top player of West German team.