On the first day of March, the news of the death of legendary French football superstar Juste Fontaine plunged the entire world football into grief.
Born on August 18, 1933, Fontaine was due to celebrate his 90th birthday this year, but unfortunately, he died of illness at the age of 89, which set a record for individual goals scored in a single World Cup.
Young fans are unfamiliar with the name "Fontaine", but old fans certainly know him. In the fifties and sixties of the last century, Fontaine's status and popularity in world football were equivalent to the current Messi and Ronaldo.
Because in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, it was not only 17-year-old Pele who was written into the history of world football, but also won the Remet Gold Cup with the Brazilian team; With 13 goals in six games, Fontaine not only won the Golden Boot of that World Cup, but also set a record for individual goals scored in a single World Cup that has not been broken.
A descendant of the French diaspora in Morocco, Fontaine was born in Marrakech, Morocco, and began his football career with Moroccan domestic club Casablanca. At the age of 20, Fontaine returned to his father's native France as the top scorer in the Moroccan league, joining Ligue 1 club Nice and later reims.
In Ligue 1, Fontaine not only led the team to league and cup titles many times, but also scored amazingly. Playing for France at the 1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden, Fontaine was Ligue 1's top scorer with 39 goals in 32 games in the just-concluded 1957–58 season.
Fontaine's World Cup debut was a blockbuster, scoring a "hat-trick" in France's 7-3 victory over Paraguay in the group stage; Then, despite France's 2-3 defeat to the then Yugoslav team, Fontaine scored twice; France beat Scotland 2-1 in the final game of the group stage, with Fontaine contributing another goal.
In the quarterfinals, Fontaine continued his hot scoring sensation as he scored twice to help France beat Northern Ireland 4-0; In the semi-finals, the protagonists were Pele, who scored a "hat-trick", and Brazil, who won 5-2, although Fontaine also scored a goal.
The three- or four-place finals between France and Germany brought Fontaine's crazy World Cup trip to a climax. He scored four goals alone to complete the "big four", increasing his total of goals in that World Cup to 13, breaking the record of 11 goals set by Hungarian center Kochis at the 1954 World Cup in Switzerland.
Can the 13-goal record set by Fontaine be surpassed by future generations? Now it seems that the difficulty is still very large, and it may even become the top of the top shooter can not climb.
Because in 65 years, the closest thing to this record is only German striker "Bomber" "Bomber" Müller, who won the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, who scored 10 goals.
Mueller is also the last top scorer in World Cup history to score double-digit goals in a single edition. The World Cup Golden Boot with the most goals since him were Brazil's Ronaldo at the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan and France's goalscorer Kylian Mbappe at last year's World Cup in Qatar, both of whom scored eight goals. This was done with the expansion of the World Cup, with the number of matches played by teams reaching the final four from six to seven.
After all, compared to the World Cup in the "ancient" era, as defensive skills and tactics continue to improve, it is becoming more and more difficult to score goals. To surpass Fontaine, you will need to complete at least two or more "hat-tricks" in a single World Cup. This requires not only the player's scoring ability, but also the strength of the team, and of course, the opponent's relatively weak strength.
The timing, the right place, and the people are indispensable, so only chance in chance is possible, and the probability is quite low.
Of course, all records have the possibility of being broken as long as they exist, perhaps at the next 2026 US-Canada-Mexico World Cup.
Three years later, the World Cup will be expanded again, with 32 teams to 48. Although the teams that reached the final four still have seven matches under the new format, there should be weaker teams in the World Cup than before, which gives top scorers the opportunity to brush up on their goal statistics.
Or, in the future, the World Cup will be expanded to 64 teams, the threshold for teams to participate will be further reduced, and the number of matches will be further increased, so under the dual effect, Fontaine's "miracle" of 13 goals in a single World Cup will be ancient.
It is also worth mentioning that the Golden Boot with the fewest goals in the history of the World Cup was produced in the 1962 FIFA World Cup in Chile. In that World Cup, which was riddled with rough fouls, the top scorer scored only four goals, and it was a tie of six players.