The former footballer, who holds the record for goals scored in a single World Cup, died at the age of 89.
Legend of French football, Just Fontaine died at the age of 89, the family told AFP on Wednesday March 1. His record of 13 goals in the only World Cup he played in, in 1958, seems eternal. And to think that “Justo” had to stop his career at the age of 29, after two left leg fractures in six months, but without regret. Always smiling and affable, he entered the pantheon of French sport.
Just Fontaine was the story of smiles. His, first, which rarely left his face. But also those of his interlocutors, whose features he always managed to brighten up with an anecdote, a bon mot or a well-felt sally. Iconic striker of the great Reims of the 50s, “Justo”, as many nicknamed him, was much more than a former glory of the round ball. Major player of the Blues of 1958, third in the Swedish world, then ephemeral coach before passages to PSG and Morocco, the former striker remained an enlightened observer of the round ball until the end, and his last departure.
From Morocco to Sweden, via Nice and Reims
The destiny of Just Fontaine finds its roots in his native Morocco – then under French protectorate – where he was born in the summer of 1933. Born of a French-speaking father and a Spanish mother, he grew up with siblings of seven siblings. Very quickly, Fontaine discovers the pleasures of football. After starting his career as number ten, he moved on as a centre-forward, and his right foot began to wreak havoc in the colors of US Moroccan Casablanca. From 1950 to 1953, he scored 62 goals there in 48 games.
“I was quick, but not the fastest. I was good with my head, but not the best. I was tapping with both feet, but I wasn’t the best. I had a set of qualities,” humbly summed up “Justo”. Enough to attract the attention of major clubs in the French First Division. Champion of France in 1951 and 1952, OGC Nice won the day. At Les Aiglons, Fontaine takes off. Result: a double in 1956, with a title of champion of France and a cup of France. And “Justo” is not there for nothing. He scored 52 goals in 83 matches. A performance that was all the more remarkable as he also performed his military service in the Joinville battalion, where professional athletes met.
Incidentally, Fontaine even dons the captain’s armband of the military selection, after a few rugby league matches. But he broke rank before the coronation of the Blues at the Mondial des Armées in 1956. It was only a postponement: Just would shine at the real Mondial, two years later. In the meantime, his performances aroused the greed of the giant of the time, the great rival of OGC Nice in the 1950s, the Stade de Reims.
Unhappy finalist of the first European Cup against Real Madrid (3-4), the Champagne club is looking for a replacement for Raymond Kopa, who has left for Real Madrid. Reims will find just what it needs in Nice: Fontaine. In the Reims armada, “Justo” becomes a formidable gunner. In 152 games, he scored 152 goals. Between 1956 and 1962, he won three championships as well as a second French Cup with the Red and Whites, and played in the 1959 European Cup final, once again lost against Real (0-2).
The eternal World Cup record
That day, Raymond Kopa wore Madrid colors for the last time, before coming to find Fontaine in Reims the following season. “Find”, because the two men have already evolved together. It was the previous summer, in 1958, during a World Cup which saw France dazzle the world of football, and finish third. If Kopa was voted Ballon d’Or and best player of the tournament, it was just Fontaine who made history during this Swedish summer.
In just six games at the World Cup, “Justo” scored no less than 13 goals. An absolute record on a single edition. Never beaten since, and probably never at all. With the blue jersey, Fontaine scored 30 goals in 21 games. Who knows how far these figures would have gone without the repeated injuries of the French goleador? After two fractures of the left leg, “Justo” hangs up his crampons in 1967, at only 29 years old. “I would have preferred to exchange my record for a few more years at the top level”he admits years later in an interview with The team. Not defeated, Fontaine then embraced a short career as a coach, after leaving his class.
In 1967, “Justo” offers a new record with the Blues by being coach for two short games. He rebounded six years later at PSG, which he led to the First Division (the ancestor of Ligue 1). “I am the only coach to have brought PSG up to D1, since it has never been down since”, he liked to recall. Between 1979 and 1981, Fontaine took charge of the young Moroccan selection, to give back to this country what it had given it: “Without Morocco, I would not have become Just Fontaine”. In 1980, the Atlas Lions finished third in the African Cup of Nations, without their coach, victim of a car accident.
After this half-hearted coaching career, Just Fontaine moved away from the world of football, while keeping a watchful eye on football news. Among the anecdotes he liked to tell was this prophecy: “In the year 4000, there are still Egyptologists looking for mummies. And there they find one, she moves! And when they take the bandages off her, she asks ‘Excuse me gentlemen, is Just Fontaine still the record holder of goals scored in the World Cup?’ “.
