Just Fontaine, centre

He had only two caps before his scoring spree in Sweden but formed a lethal partnership with the great Raymond Kopa

Just Fontaine, the French footballer, who has died aged 89, had an unrivalled eye for goal; he scored 13 of them in the World Cup finals of 1958, a tournament record that is unlikely to be surpassed.

A quick, direct centre-forward, Fontaine had only played twice for the national side before being chosen for the squad for the finals tournament, held in Sweden. Few rated France's prospects highly (they had not won a game for eight months) and most expected Fontaine to be the third-choice striker behind the experienced René Bliard.

But Fontaine had just scored 34 goals in a season for his club side, Reims, and the national coach Paul Nicolas had already promised him he would play when Bliard was injured in training. Now the Moroccan-born Fontaine was suddenly the focus of attention.

The 1958 competition was the largest up to that point, with 55 countries taking part in the qualification rounds, whittled down to 16. In France's first game, against Paraguay, Fontaine opened his account with a hat-trick in a 7-3 win and showed that he had quickly forged a partnership with the deep-lying Raymond Kopa, who would supply the passes for most of his goals. In the next match, against Yugoslavia, Fontaine scored twice, and netted another in the last game of the first round, a 2-1 win against Scotland.

Two more came in a 4-0 victory over Northern Ireland in the quarter-finals, one of them a rare header (he stood just 5ft 9in). This brought the side an appointment with Brazil in the last four. After conceding an early goal, Fontaine stabbed home an equaliser, but an injury to a defender after half an hour left France – in the era of no substitutes – a man down for the rest for the match.

The 17-year-old Pele then made his name by scoring three times as Brazil won 5-2 on their way to the final and the trophy. Fontaine took out his disappointment on Germany in the third-place play-off, claiming four of France's goals in a 6-3 win, the last of them rammed home after a 40-yard dribble. So little did his haul mean to him by that stage, however, that he turned down the chance to add to it by taking a penalty.

Nevertheless, his achievement made Fontaine a star in France : he even released an LP of his songs – Vas-y Fontaine (roughly translated, "Get in there, Fontaine") – on the back of his new fame. His success in the tournament was all the more remarkable for having been fashioned with borrowed boots; his only pair had fallen apart two days before the first match and he had had to use those of a reserve player, Stéphane Bruey.

Modern defences are meaner than those of the 1950s, and no one has come close to passing Fontaine's record. Since Gerd Müller's haul of 10 in 1970, the Golden Boot in the World Cup finals has usually been won by players scoring around half a dozen goals (though Fontaine's compatriot Kylian Mbappé scored eight in Qatar recently). Fontaine himself attributed his success to being relatively unknown by opposing teams, and to having a nose for goal. "You have to smell where the ball would end up," he would say, "and make sure you get there first."

Just Fontaine was born in Marrakesh, Morocco, on August 18 1933. The country was then a French protectorate and his father worked as a customs official. Just learnt his football playing with friends in the churchyard, an activity that often led to broken windows and a visit by the curé to the Fontaine household.

After leaving the Lycée Mangin, Casablanca, Just signed for the local team, USM Casablanca, with whom he won the North African Championship. He was soon picked for Morocco's junior national side, and then in 1953, aged 20, was signed by Nice.

He made the transition to French football with ease, scoring 38 goals in his first two seasons and winning the French Cup in 1954 and the league in 1956. All this was achieved despite the fact that he was unable to train with his teammates as he was undertaking his military service and was only released by the army (it being the time of the Algerian war) for the duration of each game.

In 1956, Fontaine moved to Stade de Reims, then the leading side in the French game. Their success was built on a flowing style of play dictated by Kopa, whom they had just sold to Real Madrid. Many thought that Fontaine had been bought as a straight replacement but the Moroccan was greatly encouraged when Reims's coach, Albert Batteux, urged him to "play like Fontaine, not like the ‘new Kopa’ ".

He rewarded Batteux's trust by netting 64 goals in his first two seasons, helping the side to win the league and cup double in 1958 and to reach the final of the European Cup in 1959, only to lose 2-0 to Kopa and Real Madrid in Stuttgart.

By the spring of 1960, with Kopa having returned to their ranks, Reims were once more on course to win the French title and Fontaine, at 26, was reaching the peak of his game. Then his career was brought to a juddering halt. In March of that year, he suffered a double fracture of his leg from which he took nine months to recover.

A projected move to Espanyol, the Barcelona side, was cancelled, and Fontaine missed the finals of the European Championships, held in France. It was scant consolation that he won a league medal and still finished the season as top scorer.

Worse was to follow. Five games after his return, in January 1961, he broke the same leg again. Immediately he knew that his time in the sport was over. He did play a handful of matches for Reims in 1962, but he was clearly not the same player and retired at the end of the season, having completed just enough games to qualify for his fourth championship medal.

He decided to become a coach, but he was then only 28 and there was a rule that managers of sides in the First Division had to be over 35. After some dithering, his admirers at the French federation found a solution to this by appointing him, in 1967, coach of the national side.

His reign only lasted two games, both of which France lost. He was heavily criticised by the press for his choice of tactics – notably the selection of a flat back four – and after only nine weeks in charge he was sacked.

Thereafter, for some years he worked for the player's union, of which he became president, then in 1974 took charge of Paris St Germain, a club founded only four years previously. He guided them into the top division, Ligue 1, for the first time and took the side to the quarter-finals of the French Cup, where they lost to Reims. Later, in the 1980s, he coached Morocco and in 1999 was involved in its bid to host the 2006 World Cup.

Aside from the number of his goals in the 1958 World Cup and his unenviably short stint as the manager of France, Fontaine also held another record – his tally of 30 goals in 21 international appearances is the best ratio of any French player, while his total of 200 goals in the 213 matches he played is, at 0.94 goals per game, fractionally ahead of Pele. By that measure at least, Just Fontaine, centre-forward nonpareil, was one of the deadliest strikers ever to have played the game.

Just Fontaine married Arlette; they had a son and daughter.

Just Fontaine, born August 18 1933, died March 1 2023