| Justin Vialaret | |
| Fullname: | Justin Pierre Vialaret |
| Birth Date: | 12 November 1883 |
| Birth Place: | Millau, Aveyron, France |
| Death Place: | Marcelcave, Somme, France |
| Position: | Midfielder |
| Years1: | 1901–1907 |
| Clubs1: | ES Parisienne |
| Years2: | 1907–1910 |
| Nationalteam1: | France B |
| Nationalyears1: | 1908 |
| Nationalcaps1: | 1 |
| Nationalgoals1: | 0 |
Justin Pierre Vialaret (12 November 1883 – 30 September 1916) was a French footballer who played as a midfielder for, and who competed in the football tournament of the 1908 Olympic Games in London, doing so as a member of the France B squad.[1] [2] [3] [4]
Justin Vialaret was born in Millau, Aveyron, on 12 November 1883.[2] [4] [5] When he was still a child, his parents moved to Paris, where he began his career at Etoile sportive Parisienne in 1901, aged 18.[5] He later became the club's president, secretary, and even treasurer, in turn or even simultaneously.[5]
Vialaret was a midfielder who was also capable of playing forward since his abilities were rather offensive, having a solid kick and being "always dangerous", to the point that the French press even acknowledged that "he shoots too much".[5] In 1907, he moved to Club athlétique de Paris 14,[3] [5] a club in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, which included a few future internationals, such as Émilien Devic, Pol Morel, and Eugène Petel.[5] In October 1908, the USFSA selected him as a reserve of the France B squad that competed in the football tournament of the 1908 Olympic Games.[5] However, he ended traveling to London as a starter following the last-minute forfeit of Étienne Morillon, thus earning his first and last international cap in the Olympic quarter-finals against Denmark, which ended in a resounding 0–9 loss.[2] [3] [5] [6] He played this match as a wing-half, being responsible for neutralizing Danish winger Oskar Nørland, who did not score a single one of the 9 goals conceded by the Blues, which partly relieves Vialaret of the responsibility for the crushing defeat.[5] Of the 26 French players who made the trip to London, Vialaret was the only one from a Parisian club.[5]
Vialaret seems to have given up football shortly after his marriage in 1910, so his mark on French football is rather thin.[5] Outside of football, he was a commercial employee.[5]
Despite benefiting from a temporary military exemption as the only son of a widow, Vialaret was incorporated into the 89th RI at the start of the First World War.[5] On 20 September 1914, during the Battle of Verdun, Vialaret, now a quartermaster corporal in the 46th Infantry Regiment, was hit in the shoulder by a shell fragment, but he was only evacuated five days later, to the Marcelcave evacuation hospital in Somme, where he died on 30 September, at the age of 32, perhaps as a result of infection from his initially poorly treated wound.[3] [4] [5]
List of Olympians killed in World War I