1958 World Cup Star : Just Fontaine

1958 World Cup Star : Just Fontaine

                                                                                                                                          

The first world-famous French football player was Lucien Laurent, who scored the first ever FIFA World Cup™ goal in 1930 against Mexico, and who died in April 2005 at the age of 97.

But the man of goals, the first great star, the first “golden player” of the French, was Just Fontaine. Full of respect, the fans called the man “Monsieur Dynamite”. Fontaine was not born in France, but in Marrakesh, Morocco, on August 18, 1933, the son of a northern French father and a Spanish mother. Just Fontaine had four brothers and two sisters. According to the wishes of his father, who worked in the tobacco industry, Just should have dedicated himself to studying medicine, playing basketball and exercising track-and-field. But the son got his way playing football and won the national youth championship in his first year with AC Marrakesh. His road led via USM Casablanca, where he became Morocco’s top goal scorer, to France at the age of 20.

In France, Fontaine played with Nice which he immediately led to a victory in the Cup and the national title the following year, and then with Rheims, with whom he became France’s top goal scorer twice. But the 1958 FIFA World Cup™ in Sweden was the big stage for his play and scoring capabilities. This event was sufficient to maintain his fame alongside later idols, such as Michel Platini and Zinedine Zidane of the more successful French football generations. The secret of his popularity is a performance that has never been equalled in the history of the FIFA World Cup™: Since that tournament in Sweden, Fontaine has held the record for most goals scored at a FIFA World Cup™ finals. In 1958 he netted 13 times, at least one in all his six matches, and that despite not being allowed to score two penalties for France. Fontaine scored three times during the 7-3 win over Paraguay; two in the 3-2 success against Yugoslavia; one in the third match against Scotland (2-1); another two in the quarter-finals against Northern Ireland (4-0); just one in the 5-2 semi-final defeat by the eventual World champions Brazil . But the highlight followed in the bronze medal match against Germany: his contribution to the 6-3 victory, was to boot the ball four times into the net behind German goalkeeper Kwiatkowski. The shirt with the number 13 became a lucky charm for Just Fontaine. Fontaine, who had earned just four caps until then, only made the squad coached by Paul Nicolas because his Rheims team-mate René Bliard was injured. Obviously, the double of championship and cup with his club Stade Rheims had marked out goalgetter Fontaine for the FIFA World Cup™. Another twist was that he played the tournament with loaned football boots. After his 13 goals, the record scorer returned them to his team-mate Stéphane Bruey.

The ranking of top FIFA World Cup™ goal scorers is now headed by Gerd Mueller. But the German needed two FIFA World Cup™ finals (1970 and 1974) for his 14 goals. Brazil’s Pelè and Ronaldo follow with 12 goals each. It was due to Pelè that Fontaine was not completely happy, despite his many goals. For in the end the Brazilian upstaged him at the FIFA World Cup™ in Sweden. In the head-to-head match between Brazil and France, Pelè destroyed Fontaine’s dream of the final by scoring three goals. On this 24th of June, 1958, the French top star managed just one goal, while 17-year-old Pelè became the new Brazilian hero with three.
Fontaine himself understood his outstanding performance only after a few years: “I realised only later what I had achieved. Then almost nobody recognised goalscorers” He would have been less able to score so many goals without his attacking team-mates, Fontaine maintained: “I scored so often because I played besides Raymond Kopa and we always attacked. Together we scored 16 goals, and as a team 23 in six matches.”
Just Fontaine’s luck ran out after this FIFA World Cup™, however. In 1960 he scored his 29th and 30th international goals against Chile. Four days later, on March 20, the centre forward broke his left shinbone for the first time in the championship match against FC Sochaux Montbéliard. The 27-year-old was out of the game for ten months, then he suffered a new fracture on the same leg. After a further long break he underwent Achilles’ tendon surgery. The comet Fontaine had burned out.
But his record remained noteworthy: Fontaine scored 30 goals in 21 matches for the Equipe Tricolore. The 1959 European Champions Cup final against Real Madrid was the greatest success in his professional career between 1950 and 1962. The 1.72m, 73kg black-haired player is said to have scored more than 400 goals in 450 matches for Casablanca, Nice, FC Rheims and Stade de Rheims.
After the end of his active career, Fontaine became President of the French players’ association, worked as a coach in Toulouse and for the national team for a short time, but was mainly at his sports equipment shop in Toulouse. In February 2005, Just Fontaine was awarded a medal of honour by the French Football Federation (FFF) after he had been elected France’s best player of the past 50 years on the occasion of the UEFA jubilee festivities. The awardee explained the phenomenon Fontaine modestly: “Everything I was, I have achieved through Raymond Kopa. For it was my friend who took away my inhibitions and practised those passes that led to goals”.