The 1958 World Cup in Sweden is the masterpiece of "Justo" and will be for a long time the absolute reference of French football before the advent of the Platini, Zidane and Mbappé generations.

Last representative of the attacking trident he formed with Raymond Kopa and Roger Piantoni, who died in 2017 and 2018, Fontaine, alongside the two other stars of Reims, had taken the Blues to the semi-finals where a certain Pelé, 17, had shattered their dream with a hat-trick.

Brazil, future winner of the tournament, wins 5-2 and the legend of the "King" is on the move but France will console themselves with a third place, carried by a Fontaine in a state of grace and author of a fabulous quadruple against to Germany (6-3).

The Blues hold their first feat of arms on the international scene and the native of Marrakech, on August 18, 1933, goes down in history.

If the Tricolores have since done much better by settling on the roof of the world in 1998 then 2018, Fontaine's feat today seems totally unreal and inaccessible.

"The imprint he left on world football will forever be remembered and this record will probably never be beaten," said Fifa President Gianni Infantino.

Choice list

Himself, never stingy with good words with his southwestern accent, was amused by the longevity of his record in 2014 with the Télégramme de Brest: "It's a little story that Mario Zatelli (former player and coach of OM, editor's note). It takes place in 3015. Egyptologists discover a mummy in a sad state. By cleaning it a little, the mummy is agitated. It is not in fact dead, wakes up and then asks this question: + And the record of goals in a single World Cup, it's still Just Fontaine who has it? + "

Just Fontaine in Gothenburg, Sweden, June 28, 1958 © STAFF / AFP/Archives

And yet, this rather stocky striker (1.74 m), both surface fox before the hour and gunner, was not intended to compete in the event, preceded in the hierarchy in blue by Thadée Cisowski.

But the latter is injured at the last moment.

"It was only at the airport before leaving for Sweden that Paul Nicolas (manager of the France team, editor's note) and Albert Batteux (one of the coaches, editor's note), who didn't really want me , told me that I would play centre-forward," Fontaine told AFP in 2013.

In addition to his 13 goals and the first international medal for the French team gleaned in Sweden, Fontaine has also built a choice list of clubs with four French championship titles (one with Nice, three with Reims), two Cups de France and a European Cup final for champion clubs lost with Reims in 1959 (2-0) against the great Real Madrid of Di Stefano, Puskas and friend Kopa.

An "older brother" confided "Justo" to AFP at the time of the disappearance of the illustrious playmaker of the Blues in 2017. "Raymond had character, me too and it made a magical duo."

"With Kopa, they wrote the first epic of French football. Just Fontaine will forever be our founding myth," said French President Emmanuel Macron on Twitter.

The Reims club paid tribute to "a star of French football, an outstanding scorer, a legendary Rémois".

His former teammate in Reims, Robert Siatka (88), remembers a player "very intelligent, not very fast" but "with an extra sense of goal".

"He was always in the right place, well placed. Every time he had an opportunity, he put it in," he told AFP.

Two matches at the head of the Blues

However, Fontaine's career as a player came to an abrupt end in 1962 at only 28 years old after two double fractures of a leg.

"There is a lot of talk about my record but I would have exchanged it for five or six years more, because football was my passion. I was at the top, I earned a lot of money for the time. It was not not the current sums, I earned five times the minimum wage, now it would be more like a hundred times”, he explained in 2013.

Fontaine becomes a coach, but his time on the bench will be quite mixed.

Just Fontaine in Angers on March 8, 2017 © JEAN-SEBASTIEN EVRARD / AFP/Archives

His name is engraved in the annals for a performance far less glorious than his 13 World Cup goals: he only had two matches in charge of the France team in 1967, before being ejected after two defeats in friendly.

His experience at PSG (1973-1976) was more successful with a rise to the 1st division in 1974. Carried in triumph by the supporters, he had an illness that remained in the legend of the Parisian club.

He completes his life as a technician in his native Moroccan land, offering a third place at CAN-1980 to the Atlas Lions.

A peaceful retiree, the former striker had kept a watchful eye on football news, claiming to watch all the matches on television, even if he was diminished by illness in the last years of his life.

In 2011, he was invited by then coach Laurent Blanc to Clairefontaine, as a glorious elder, to preach the good word to the Blues, a year after the Knysna fiasco.

© 2023 AFP