Mangin High School reprimands harassed the Fontaines\u2019 letterbox more than unwelcome advertisements. Delphin reacted by shaving off his son\u2019s hair as punishment. \u201cIt didn\u2019t do me any favours with the girls, so I started forging my dad\u2019s signature!\u201d Just admitted later, laughing.<\/p>\n
Papa wasn\u2019t the only parent he disobeyed. When Marie Dolores ordered \u2018Justo\u2019, as she called him, to go to their local church in Marrakesh, he did so but blasted a ball around its courtyard and, to her horror, smashed a stained-glass window. The chaos continued. Just bunked school during days and snuck into cinemas without paying on evenings.<\/p>\n
The former eventually expelled the ungovernable kid. Just viewed it as a blessing in disguise. The blessing that fast-tracked him into a football career. \u201cI graduated on grass!\u201d he commented.<\/p>\n
The child genius graduated early. At 17, he bagged 23 goals in 16 games in the Moroccan top-flight. Two years later he joined Nice and hit France like a cyclone. Miraculously, not even a 30-month stint on Moroccan military service could stop him. Fontaine, indeed, was granted the unprecedented privilege of being able to commute, by train, between the Joinville Battalion and the Stade du Ray for games.<\/p>\n
Fontaine was soon summoned by France. He switched allegiance, marked his international debut with a treble, and was duly named in their squad for the 1958 FIFA World Cup\u2122. As it turns out, you could take the boy out of school, but you couldn\u2019t take the disobedience out of the boy.<\/p>\n
Les Bleus\u2019 players were given a few strict instructions. One was to take a spare pair of boots. Twenty-one men complied. One ignored the edict. Having played just five internationals in four-and-a-half years, Fontaine didn\u2019t expect action.<\/p>\n
Rene Bilard and Thadee Cisowski were, however, both ruled out through injury. Albert Batteux, who doubled up as Fontaine\u2019s Reims and France coach, told him he\u2019d be starting ahead of the likes of Stephane Bruey and Yvon Douis.<\/p>\n
Ecstasy instantly turned to agony. In their final training session, Fontaine\u2019s boots split. \u201cI was devastated,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI thought my chance could be gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only one reserve shared the same shoe size. Had Bruey declined to offer Fontaine his boots, he himself may have spearheaded France at the finals. Fortunately for the latter, his gracious pal passed them over.<\/p>\n
In the borrowed boots Fontaine wreaked terror. He hit a hat-trick against Paraguay, a brace against Yugoslavia and the winner against Scotland. Another double in a thrashing of Northern Ireland set up a mouth-watering semi-final against Brazil.<\/p>\n
It took Fontaine only nine minutes to get on the scoresheet. Later that half, however, Robert Jonquet broke his leg. Substitutions weren\u2019t permitted in that era, so France had to play the remainer of the game at a numerical handicap. Predictably, their No17 was neutralised thereafter in a 5-2 loss to Garrincha, Pele and Co.<\/p>\n
\u2018Justo\u2019 had one last shot at the towering target Sandor Kocsis had set four years earlier. He\u2019d chopped the 11-goal record for goals in one edition of the World Cup down to two. It seemed unlikely he\u2019d be able to equal it \u2013 unlikelier still eclipse it \u2013 against holders West Germany in the third-place play-off.<\/p>\n
Yet the former bad boy was back to his old tricks. This time logic got disobeyed. Four goals past Heinz Kwiatkowski fetched France bronze and himself a landmark that has never been \u2013 and may never be \u2013 outranked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to tell people that some of my goals were inspired by combining two spirits inside the same shoe,\u201d he joked, before revealing his secret. \u201cThe big advantage I had with my record is that I\u2019d had a knee operation in December 1957 and came back in February. That gave me a little winter break which meant that, in June, I was fresh when others weren\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat said, to score 13 goals when I wasn\u2019t taking penalties was amazing. I ran on water like Jesus. I have no idea if it’ll be beaten as I’m not a soothsayer, but I’m not against keeping it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fontaine was thrilled to be invited to Brazil 2014 by FIFA. There, he was presented with the adidas Platinum Boot in recognition of his record. \u201cI\u2019m very emotional,\u201d said the Frenchman. \u201cIt\u2019s beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI scored eight goals in 2002,\u201d responded Ronaldo, \u201cand it\u2019s something I\u2019m really, really, proud of. \u201cYou scored 13. Thirteen! And in one fewer game! I don\u2019t have words [to honour your achievement]. You\u2019re a legend.\u201d<\/p>\n
That legend passed away in 2022, but not before giving a characteristically comical response to whether his milestone will ever be eclipsed.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne day, some Egyptologists come across an intact mummy,\u201d he said. \u201cThey observe it and notice that it’s moving under the bandages. They hurry to unwrap it and set it free, and when, finally, it speaks, it says, \u2018Excuse me, but does Just Fontaine still have the goals record?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mangin High School reprimands harassed the Fontaines\u2019 letterbox more than unwelcome advertisements. Delphin reacted by shaving off his son\u2019s hair as punishment. \u201cIt didn\u2019t do me any favours with the girls, so I started forging my dad\u2019s signature!\u201d Just admitted later, laughing. Papa wasn\u2019t the only parent he disobeyed. When Marie Dolores ordered \u2018Justo\u2019, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":983331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20966],"tags":[9648,27192],"class_list":["post-983330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fifa-news","tag-fifa","tag-fifa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=983330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/983331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=983330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=983330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=983330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}