Raymond Kopa
| ● The file | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1931, Nœux-les-Mines, France — son of a Polish miner |
| Golden Ball | 1958 |
| European Cups | 3 consecutive (1956, 1957, 1958) with Real Madrid |
| World Cup 1958 | Best player of the tournament |
Kopa was the little engine inside the greatest club side of the 1950s: three consecutive European Cups with Real Madrid (1956–58), feeding Di Stéfano and Gento, then returning to France to win the Ballon d'Or in the year Reims rebuilt around him. Small, low-slung, endlessly inventive, he was nicknamed for an emperor because generals of the game could not otherwise explain how a man that size commanded that much territory.
In 1958 he stood at the centre of a French golden generation that lost its heartbeat when Just Fontaine's goals carried a wounded team to a World Cup semi-final — Kopa was named the tournament's best player. He remains the archetype of the playmaker who makes others wealthy: his assist record is the quiet half of Real Madrid's early empire, and his 1958 Ballon d'Or was the first for France, a country that would come to collect the trophy like no other.