Team	Apps	Goals
USM Casablanca	48	62
Nice	69	42
Reims	131	122
France	21	30
	268	256

We usually associate the all-time great footballers with the greatest accolades: World Cup winners like Lionel Messi, Ballon d’Or winners like Cristiano Ronaldo, and all-time World Cup top scorers like Miroslav Klose & Ronaldo Nazário.

But what about a player who, by the record books, had the greatest single tournament in the history of the sport? A player whose name you need to remember for any respectable sports quiz..

Born on the 18th of August 1933, I’d like to dedicate the first-ever edition of Archive to Just Louis Fontaine, a man who still holds the record for the most goals scored in a single World Cup, scoring 13 in 6 games.

Club Career

Fontaine was born in Marrakech, Morocco, to a French father and Spanish mother who moved to Casablanca at an early age. This is where Fontaine started his career for USM Casablanca, scoring 62 goals in 48 games for the Moroccan league club.

In December of 1953, Fontaine earned his first international call-up for France. In an 8-0 battering, France beat a poor Luxembourg side where Fontaine scored a hat-trick on his debut! An unbelievable start to international football.

In the following season, Fontaine moved to Nice in Ligue 1, where he went on to score 42 goals in 69 games over the course of 3 seasons. Then in 1956, Fontaine transferred to Stade De Reims to see out his career.

His spell at Reims was his most successful, where he won the Ligue 1 championship twice and also got to the 1958/59 European Cup final. Fontaine scored 122 goals in 131 games for Reims, cementing himself as a striker who knew how to find the back of the net in pretty much every game.

Despite his scoring record at club level, and even a hat-trick on his international debut, Fontaine only found himself mustering 2 more caps in the 5 years following his debut performance. That was until the 1958 World Cup in Sweden.

1958 World Cup

Due to an injury, Fontaine found himself leading the line and he didn’t disappoint. In the 3 group stage matches, Fontaine would go on to score 6 goals, progressing France to the knockout round as group leaders. To put that into perspective, this tally alone would have been enough to see Fontaine lift the Golden Boot in 10 of the 12 most recent competitions.

A hat-trick against Paraguay in a 7-3 win, a brace against Yugoslavia in a 3-2 loss, and a single goal against Scotland in a 2-1 win. Fontaine had well and truly arrived in Sweden.

Quarter-Finals

The Quarter-final match saw France come up against a Northern Ireland team who finished second in their group. Once again, Fontaine took this match as an opportunity to bolster his goal tally, scoring 2 goals in a 4-0 win..

You may be thinking, ‘why haven’t I heard of Just Fontaine before now?’ This may be because a 17-year-old Brazilian burst onto the scene and would arguably go on to be known as the greatest footballer of all time.

Semi-Finals

The Semi-finals saw a prime Fontaine face off with a young Pelé in a match where the latter made a name for himself. Brazil won the game 5-3; Pelé scored a hat-trick of his own, but Fontaine’s single goal wasn’t enough of a contribution. Fontaine now sat at 9 goals, enough to win 19 of the 22 WC golden boots.

Brazil went on to win the tournament, and Pelé went on to make a name for himself. Fontaine scored his 4 remaining goals in the third-place playoff match against a tough opponent in West Germany, winning 6-3. France finished 3rd in the tournament, and Fontaine beat the previous record of most goals at a single tournament by 2.

What’s remarkable about Fontaine’s performance throughout the tournament is that he hit the post multiple times and even gave up the opportunity to take a penalty in the 3rd place playoff. His tally could easily have exceeded 16 goals.

Retirement

In the following 2 years, Fontaine played 6 more times for France before he was forced to retire at the age of 28 due to a recurring leg injury. He finished his international career with an astonishing 30 goals in 21 games, a strike rate of 1.43!

Since retiring, only one player has come within touching distance of his record, Gerd Muller with 10. Ronaldo (R9) and Mbappe have both scored 8 goals in a World Cup Finals, but each of these played 1 additional game compared to Fontaine and Muller.

Sadly, Fontaine passed away this year in Toulouse at the age of 89. His name is written firmly in the history books as one of the greatest goal scorers the World Cup has ever witnessed.

There are skeptics who question the standards of the game during this time, but any player who scores 13 goals in someone else’s boots on the biggest stage deserves no critics, only plaudits.

Trophies and accolades will always influence how we reflect on careers, but records of this magnitude should have the same standing. I, for one, consider Just Fontaine a great footballer and I hope that this record stands the test of time.

Happy birthday Just Fontaine, welcome to the Archive.