Going Vertical

Going Vertical, also known as Three Seconds, is a 2017 Russian sports drama film directed by Anton Megerdichev about the victory of the Soviet national basketball team over the 1972 U.S. Olympic team, ending their 63-game winning streak, at the Munich Summer Olympic's men's basketball tournament. Upon its release on December 28, 2017, Going Vertical achieved critical and commercial success. With a worldwide gross of , Going Vertical was the highest-grossing modern Russian film of all time at the time of release. Plot The year was 1970. The senior men's Soviet Union national basketball team had changed its head coach. The team's new head coach, Vladimir Garanzhin (Vladimir Kondrashin), who was also the head coach of the Leningrad based BC Spartak basketball club, of the USSR Premier League; said at a press conference that at the Munich Summer Olympic Games, the Soviet Union was going to beat the U.S. men's national basketball team. The statements of the coach frightened Soviet sports officials, for whom their main goal was to perform strongly at the world's biggest sporting stage, in the year of the 50th anniversary of the Soviet Union, and keep their posts. Vladimir Garanzhin completely changed the composition of the Soviet team, and it was no longer dominated by CSKA Moscow players, but instead the players from several different clubs of the country. Garanzhin also began training the team with new coaching techniques; he needed to inspire the team, and convince the players that they could beat the American team.