It's 17 days to the World Cup, so let's have a look at players who wore #17
in past tournaments.

It's hard not to begin with Just Fontaine, whose 13 goals in 1958 made of
him, to this day, the highest goalscorer of any single edition of the tournament (and 4th highest overall, behind Miroslav Klose, Ronaldo and Gerd Müller) and obviously the number's top goalscorer. Born in Marrakech, in
what was then French Morocco, Fontaine would later coach Morocco to the
1980 African Cup of Nations semifinals and nearly took them to the 1982
World Cup, losing to Cameroon in the final round. At club level, he coached
PSG on their way back to the French first division in 1974.

17 was also the first number worn by Cristiano Ronaldo in a World Cup (2006). The players who wore it for most WC's, three each, were Poland's Andrzej Szamach (1974 to 1982), Croatia's Robert Jarni (1990 for Yugoslavia, then
1998 and 2002 for Croatia), USA's Marcelo Balboa (1990 to 1998), Germany's
Per Mertesacker (2006 to 2014) and Japan's Makoto Hasebe (2010 to 2018).

Another French #17 was Jean-Pierre Papin (1986). And, in memoriam, there
was Marc-Vivién Foé, who wore it for Cameroon in 1994 and 2002, missing
1998 due to a broken leg.

Feel free to add to the above list or remind us of notorious #17's I may
have missed. And coming up next, #16!


Best regards,

Lléo

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