In 1958, Real Madrid forward Raymond Kopa was awarded the Ballon d’Or.
He became the first French player to win the accolade with no other claiming the prize until fellow countryman Michel Platini in 1983.
Kopa was the second Real Madrid star to lift the Ballon d’Or after Alfredo Di Stefano, with players from the Bernabeu doing so across three consecutive seasons.
Often considered one of the finest players of his generation, the Frenchman was a deep-lying attacker who was quick and an agile playmaker who could dribble whilst proving a clinical goalscorer.
Spanish sports newspaper Marca adorned him with a nickname inspired by another small yet successful general.
Raymond Kopa was Real Madrid’s ‘Little Napoleon.’
Sensation In Spain
Kopa was an integral part of the Stade Reims side that reached the 1956 European Cup Final but lost 4-3 to Alfredo Di Stéfano’s Real Madrid.
Soon after the defeat, in the summer of 1956, Raymond Kopa joined Los Blancos and made an immediate impact. The Spanish side won La Liga, Latin Cup and European Cup yet Kopa was beaten to the Ballon d’Or by teammate Alfredo Di Stefano.
During the 1957/58 campaign, the Frenchman was on fire and scored 11 goals in 38 games across all competitions from a deeper attacking role.
He netted eight times in 27 La Liga matches as Real lifted the 1957/58 La Liga title, the sixth in their history, beating runners-up Atletico Madrid by three points.
Madrid were triumphant in the 1958 European Cup final as they defeated AC Milan 3-2 after extra time.
Kopa netted three times during the tournament, once in a 6-0 first-round home win against Belgium’s Royal Antwerp before also scoring a brace in the quarter-final vs. Sevilla.
But it was on the World stage that Kopa shone brightest.
1958 World Cup
The 1958 World Cup came to Sweden with a host of world-class stars on display.
The French team were amongst the favourites to lift the Jules Rimet trophy and saw Raymond Kopa perform brilliantly for his country.
During the calendar year, he scored four times in seven international matches with three of those strikes coming at the tournament itself.
Kopa found the net twice vs. Paraguay and Scotland as France topped group two and progressed all the way through to the semi-final stage. He then converted a penalty during the French 6-3 victory in their third-place play-off match vs. West Germany. Kopa went on to feature in FIFA’s World Cup All-Star Team as recognition of his superb performances.
At club level, he is remembered as an integral part of the legendary 1950s Real Madrid team that had already won three European Cups in a row and went on to claim five consecutive European honours. Kopa scored 30 times in 101 matches over three seasons at the Bernabeu before returning to Reims in 1959.
The Frenchman finished third in the 1956 and 1957 Ballon d’Or and was named runner-up in 1959.
In 2004, Pelé named Kopa as one of the ‘125 Greatest Living Footballers ‘within the prestigious FIFA 100 list.
1958 Ballon d’Or Top 20
| Rank | Name | Club(s) | Nationality | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Raymond Kopa | Spain Real Madrid | France | 71 |
| 2 | Helmut Rahn | West Germany Rot-Weiss Essen | West Germany | 40 |
| 3 | Just Fontaine | France Reims | France | 23 |
| 4 | John Charles | Italy Juventus | Wales | 15 |
| Kurt Hamrin | Italy Padova, Italy Fiorentina | Sweden | ||
| 6 | Billy Wright | England Wolverhampton Wanderers | England | 9 |
| 7 | Johnny Haynes | England Fulham | England | 7 |
| 8 | Harry Gregg | England Manchester United | Northern Ireland | 6 |
| Nils Liedholm | Italy Milan | Sweden | ||
| Horst Szymaniak | West Germany Wuppertaler SV | West Germany | ||
| 11 | Colin McDonald | England Burnley | England | 5 |
| 12 | Francisco Gento | Spain Real Madrid | Spain | 4 |
| Gunnar Gren | Sweden Örgryte IS | Sweden | ||
| Vujadin Boškov | Yugoslavia Vojvodina | Yugoslavia | ||
| Bengt Gustavsson | Italy Atalanta | Sweden | ||
| Valentin Ivanov | Soviet Union Torpedo Moskva | Soviet Union | ||
| Luis Suárez | Spain Barcelona | Spain | ||
| Lev Yashin | Soviet Union Dynamo Moscow | Soviet Union | ||
| 19 | Orvar Bergmark | Sweden Örebro SK | Sweden | 2 |
| Danny Blanchflower | England Tottenham Hotspur | Northern Ireland | ||
| Ivan Kolev | Bulgaria CDNA Sofia | Bulgaria | ||
| Bruno Nicolè | Italy Juventus | Italy | ||
| Ladislav Novák | Czechoslovakia Dukla Prague | Czechoslovakia | ||
| Lennart Skoglund | Italy Internazionale | Sweden |
Trivia
Raymond Kopa finished third on the list of France Football’s “Player Of The Century” behind only Zinedine Zidane and Michel Platini.
In eleven international games for West Germany, winger Helmut Rahn found the net ten times across the calendar year as his national side reached the 1958 World Cup semi-final.
French striker Just Fontaine scored a remarkable 18 goals in just twelve caps for France during 1958.
