Exactly 90 years ago, Juste Fontaine was born – a French football player who is known for a short, but very bright career. He still holds the record for the most goals in a single World Cup, despite the fact that he played on it thanks to a combination of circumstances. Fontaine retired from the sport at the age of 27 due to severe injuries, but was able to realize himself outside the football field. Lenta.ru is about the life and career of an amazing Frenchman.
Source: AFP 2023
A thousand years later, Egyptologists, still looking for kings and pharaohs at the foot of the pyramids, discover a sarcophagus. When they open it, they notice that the mummy lying in it is moving. She is quickly turned around and begins to speak. Her first words: “Fontaine’s record broken?” – such an anecdote was told by the owner of the achievement to journalists in response to endless questions about who and when could surpass his record. So far, no one has been able to get close to him.
From Morocco to the stars
Fontaine was born in the city of Marrakech, in Morocco, which in 1933 was not independent and was under the French protectorate. Juste’s mother was Spanish, and his father was French, in Morocco he worked in a tobacco factory. From early childhood, the guy chased the ball with his peers, but his father tried with all his might to convince the boy that football was too dangerous a sport for him. He didn’t really listen to him, and in the end, his father waved his hand. Juste began to train in the amateur team of his native Marrakesh, after which he received an invitation from Casablanca, who played in the national championship.
Source: AFP 2023
At the age of 17, Fontaine made his debut at the adult level; in total, he played 48 matches for Casablanca, in which he scored 62 goals. Such performance of the young striker aroused interest in him from scouts from France itself. In 1953, the 20-year-old guy received an offer that could not be refused. Juste was invited by Nice, which at that time was one of the leaders of the French championship.
When I showed up in Nice, people said: “You need to be more careful with this guy.” Others might ask, “Why? Does he have a good hit? Does he play well with his head? Is he fast? Does he have good technique? The answer to all questions was yes, but the real danger lay in my mental strength.
Just Fontaine
In the new team, Fontaine did not get lost and immediately showed everyone his talent as a scorer. For three seasons, the striker scored 43 goals, and even the service in the French army, which he passed in parallel, did not prevent him from showing high performance. And part of it was in Paris. Of course, Fontaine did not need to live in the barracks, and the command treated him as loyally as possible, however, the player regularly visited his duty station and therefore spent a lot of time on the Nice-Paris train.
Fontaine helped Nice win the Cup and the French Championship, and in 1956 Reims came to him. Now this team hangs between the elite and the second most powerful French division, but in the 1950s the red and white churned out championships in France and were contenders for European titles. Juste was invited to replace another star striker, Raymond Cope, who moved from Reims to Real Madrid.
Fontaine went to Reims to a new level.
In six seasons, he scored more than 120 goals, twice became the top scorer of the French championship, helped the team take three titles in the national championship, the French Cup, and also reached the 1959 European Cup final with Reims. There, his team lost just to Real Madrid, led by Kopa.
Almost three years passed between Fontaine’s debut and his second match for the French national team. And this despite the fact that the premiere, which took place in the winter of 1953, was very successful: the forward scored a hat-trick against Luxembourg. However, the competition in the attack of the French was crazy, and until 1956 the coaches relied on other players. Juste was brought back to the national team by coach Albert Batte. Since the autumn of 1956, the player was again called up to the team, although before the 1958 World Cup he played only four friendly matches in which he scored one goal. Fontaine’s trip to the world championship in Sweden was a big question, but Batte still did not dare to leave the top scorer of the French championship behind. So Just and got into the team.
True, the coaching staff initially did not particularly count on the Reims forward, he was destined for the role of a substitute. It was planned that the trio of Raymond Kopa, Roger Piantoni and René Blyard would be the soloist in the attack, but the latter, just before the start of the tournament, received a painful injury in training. Thanks to this, Fontaine had a chance.
Source: AFP 2023
At the last training session before the start of the tournament, Juste’s boots were torn, neither the player himself nor the team’s administrative headquarters had spares, and team partner Stephane Bruey came to the rescue. He went to the tournament as a reservist and lost his shoes to the striker, which became happy for the Frenchman. “I don’t know where these boots are now. If Bruay and I could find them, we would sell them at auction and earn some money for retirement,” Fontaine said many years later.
Fontaine started the tournament in Sweden without buildup: in the first match with Paraguay (7:3), he scored a hat-trick, then upset the Yugoslavs twice (2:3), after which he scored the winning goal against Scotland (2:1). 16 teams played at the World Cup then, so the playoffs began from the ¼ final stage, where France simply destroyed Northern Ireland (4:0). Fontaine chalked up a double. In the semi-finals, the French capitulated to the future world champions, the Brazilians (2:5), but even here Juste did not leave the field without a goal.
The hero of that game was Pele, who scored a hat-trick.
In the final match of the tournament, the French had to compete for third place with the German national team, and Fontaine stormed the record set at the last World Cup by Shandor Kocsis. The Hungarian scored 11 goals, for the fall of achievement the Frenchman had to draw a hat-trick. Juste overfulfilled the plan and scored four goals, and his team won with a tennis score of 6:3. Fontaine’s record has not been broken so far, for comparison, the top scorer of the last World Cup, Kylian Mbappe, scored only eight goals, spending one game more than Fontaine.
In Sweden I ran on water like Jesus. Due to a meniscus injury, I had a great rest in the winter, so I approached the spring and summer in chic form.
Just Fontaine
The uniqueness of the Frenchman’s achievement is also that he scored all of his 13 goals in Sweden from the game. By the way, almost all of them are like a blueprint: a throw or a pass from the bottom of the field, a one-on-one exit, a clear end. The picture was diluted with one goal with a header and a couple of shots into an empty net from close range. Fontaine had crazy speed, great open, and partners in the national team and clubs learned how to correctly supply him with balls. This weapon worked flawlessly.
After the World Cup, Fontaine became a national hero in France, but did not slow down and continued to churn out goals. After the World Cup in Sweden, the striker took two championships with Reims, once became the top scorer of the country’s championship and reached the final of the European Champions Cup. The striker could have pleased the fans of Reims and the French national team for a long time, but injuries put an end to these prospects.
In March 1960, the forward suffered his first broken leg in a match with Sochaux and flew past Euro 1960, which was won by the USSR team. By October, Fontaine returned to action, but already in January 1961 he had a relapse of the injury, after which the football player realized that he could no longer play at a professional level. Sports medicine at that time was at a much lower level than it is now, so if Juste continued his career, he risked remaining disabled.
Fontaine was 27 years old when he retired.
After the World Cup, Fontaine signed a contract with Adidas, which, in addition to a good salary, also paid him decent insurance for a serious injury. “With this money, I was able to open a sports shop in Toulouse,” the forward recalled. In parallel with the business, Just decided to work for the benefit of other players and in 1962 headed the National Union of Professional Football Players of France. Fontaine, along with colleagues, ensured that all injured players received insurance, and not just those who were under contract with Adidas. In addition, thanks to his efforts, French clubs have become much more accurate in fulfilling their contractual obligations to the players.
Source: AP 2023
Fontaine also trained as a coach and in 1967 he had a unique chance to make his debut in this field immediately as a mentor to the French team. True, at the head of the tricolor, he spent only two matches.
The last game was a home defeat from the USSR national team (2:4) with Lev Yashin at the gate.
Fontaine’s comeback to the coaching profession took place in 1973, and this time the Frenchman led PSG for three whole years. The current superclub was then a modest team from the second division, which, according to Fontaine’s memoirs, did not exceed five thousand spectators. However, the record holder was able to pull the Parisians out of the swamp of the lower leagues, raising them to the elite division. Juste also managed to work with his native Morocco national team. Together with the team, the Frenchman took the bronze of the 1980 African Cup of Nations.
Fontaine spent the last years of his life in Toulouse, where he had several sports shops. He wrote columns for sports publications and attended public events. The heart of the great football player stopped quite recently – on March 1, 2023. He did not live to see his 90th birthday for only a few months.
2023-08-17 23:31:20
#record #years #beaten #football #players #famous #French #striker #leave #sport #height #fame #Sports #Mail.ru
