Lucien Laurent (1907-2005) is a French soccer player. He was the first to score a goal in the first World Cup in Uruguay in 1930, and it is one of the two goals he scored in his short international career with France, which did not exceed 10 matches during the period from 1930 to 1935. .
Laurent was the only one from the first World Cup generation, who attended the World Cup final in Paris, and watched France win the title in 1998. By this date, the former “Sochaux” club player was a “national treasure”, and the world discovered following 68 years that his goal was historic. .
Birth and upbringing
Lucien Laurent was born on December 10, 1907, in Saint-Maur de Fossey-Val-de-Marne, near Paris, to poor parents who gave birth to him and his brother Jean.
Laurent was fourteen years old when he played football in 1921 with Paris Charenton, and he played for him for 9 years. In 1930 he joined the club then known as “Peugeot Sochaux”, affiliated with the French car company “Peugeot”, where he worked.
At a time when football was not yet a professional sport, Laurent combined his hobby playing football with his work in the company. With the permission of their management, he was taking advantage of some off-hours to train in preparation for playing matches at the weekend.
Over the course of his domestic football career, he played for many French clubs such as “Athletic de Paris”, “Club Francais”, “Millehouse”, “Rennes”, “Strasbourg”, “Toulouse” and “Besancon”.
10 international matches
Laurent played only 10 international matches with the French national team, and participated in the first World Cup in Uruguay, and the injury prevented him from participating in the 1934 World Cup in Italy, and in the 1938 World Cup in France the coach excluded him for his old age, as he had reached 31 years.
His first match was once morest Portugal in 1930, and his last once morest Hungary (Hungary) in 1935. In addition to his first goal, his best memory is the friendly match once morest England, in which he scored his second and final goal in a blue shirt.
The road to Uruguay
Laurent was 22 years old in 1930, when he and his older brother Jean, along with 14 other players, were called up to wear the France shirt during the first World Cup tournament.
He did not expect to be selected, as only a few months ago he had participated in a friendly match once morest Portugal, and for him it was a wonderful surprise to play the World Cup in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay.
The French Federation had great difficulty in forming a national team, because many of the players who were approached had to eventually not accept the invitation, following their managers refused to allow their absence for two consecutive months.
As for Laurent, his brother, and colleagues Andre Machino and Etienne Mattler, they took unpaid leave from Peugeot to participate in the World Cup, and received only small expenses from the French Football Federation.
On June 19, Laurent, accompanied by the rest of the French team, set off from the port of “Villefronche-sur-Mer” on board the Italian ship “Conte Verdi”, across the Atlantic Ocean for two weeks to South America.
Also on the trip were Belgium and Romania, and many personalities, including France’s Jules Rimet, then FIFA president and founder of the World Cup.
Laurent, his team mates and the rest of the players of the other teams would train and run with the ball on the deck to keep fit, without their coaches talking to them regarding tactics.
Laurent participated for free in the World Cup, and he was an amateur player, and he did not receive a salary from the French Federation, and all the money he received was for his appearance in the World Cup, and a financial reward during the periods of camps and international matches only.
After returning to France, he did not get a free time to play with his team, “Sochaux”, but continued his work at the “Peugeot” factory, in addition to playing football.
Historical purpose
Laurent was a midfielder, and he was short, not exceeding 1.62 meters in length, and despite that he managed to snatch the first goal in the history of the world championship, and put his team on the path to a 4-1 victory over Mexico, in the opening match of the first World Cup on the grounds of Pocitos Stadium in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, On a winter’s day, it was snowing.
Uruguay had given up playing this match in favor of the French national team, in appreciation of Jules Rimet, the owner of the World Cup idea, and the French Football Federation, which sent its team overseas to participate in this tournament, and thus violated the European consensus to boycott the World Cup on the grounds of the distance between Europe and Uruguay.
On July 13, 1930, in the 19th minute of the first match in the first World Cup, Lucien Laurent scored the first goal in the history of the World Cup, following he received a ball from his colleague Ernest Liberati and scored it once morest the Mexican national team, and Oscar Bonfiglio was the first goalkeeper to live in His net was the first goal in the history of the World Cup, which is called the “World Cup of the Firsts”.
After 3 matches in the World Cup, France exited the first round, and Laurent returned to his country without anyone commenting on the importance of the goal he scored, and he also rarely talked regarding it, but rather considered it a normal goal like all other goals.
In one of his interviews with the press, he says regarding that moment, “After my goal, which was the first in the tournament and also my first goal with the French national team, we congratulated each other, but without jumping over each other as is the case in football today. None of us realized at that moment that we had written A page from history, we didn’t even know if this kind of competition would have a second edition.”
A prisoner of war and late glory
Laurent joined the French armed forces in World War II, and during the period from 1940 to 1943 his family was captured by German forces in Saxony, and his house in Germany was robbed during the war, and his belongings were placed in a furniture store in Strasbourg, including the shirt he wore in the 1930 World Cup .
Laurent spoke regarding that incident, saying, “All my memories were there, in a corner of my head, and no one would have stolen them.”
When he was released in 1943, Laurent returned to playing football at the age of 36, and played 3 seasons with the “Besancon” club, and in 1946 he announced his final retirement from playing, and became a coach for the youth sector.
After retiring from football, he worked in managing a bar in “Besancon” until 1972, away from the limelight and was forgotten by the football world, and his memories remained preserved only in his memory.
In 1990, a few months before the World Cup in Italy, a journalist from Gazzetta del Sport visited him at his home and recounted his story to the world. His memories of the World Cup reappeared for the first time during a festive evening coinciding with Italy’s hosting of the 1990 World Cup.
In an interview with a British newspaper in 1998, Laurent – who was 91 years old at the time – indicated that he did not imagine the importance of the goal he scored in the World Cup.
On the occasion of France’s hosting of the 1998 World Cup finals, the former “Sochaux” player was a “national treasure”, and people talked regarding him once more, and he was celebrated, and at that time he evoked memories and funny stories that are part of the history of the World Cup, while the French media highlighted him His historical goal.
Lucien Laurent was the only one among the generation participating in the 1930 World Cup, who watched France win the World Cup in 1998. And in the midst of the celebrations, the camera lenses paid attention to him when he appeared that evening in the stands of “Saint-Denis”.
The last of the departed from the 1930s generation
A year before France played the second World Cup final in its history in 2006 in Germany, Lucien Laurent died on April 11, 2005, at the age of 97, in a city in the French east, 411 km from the suburb of Besançon, in which he was born near Paris.
He was the last of the departed from the generation of 1930, who scored his first appearance with the French national team in the World Cup.
