Little did Varane and Griezmann know that Julien had fabricated the entire story. The words had rolled off his tongue with such natural conviction that neither of them had questioned their authenticity for even a moment.
As youth team players still finding their footing in the complex French football, hearing such insider information about the Football Association and the senior team gave them an intoxicating sense of touching upon high-level political intrigue.
They instantly felt transformed: no longer like youth team players grinding away in obscurity, but rather key players in the national team, standing shoulder to shoulder with Julien himself.
Julien maintained his air of vagueness, giving no further explanation. Sometimes the most convincing lies were the ones left incomplete, allowing the listener's imagination to fill in the terrifying details.
Varane and Griezmann exchanged knowing glances and nodded slightly. They wouldn't breathe a word of this to anyone.
'Julien trusts us,' they thought with a mixture of pride and responsibility. 'What if we failed to keep the secret and spoke out carelessly? What if our loose lips somehow harmed him?'
The responsibility of common secrets settled on their shoulders. They both felt a sense of companionship.
They were around the same age anyway.
Julien was so capable, so accomplished at such a young age, yet he didn't look down on them. He didn't carry himself with the arrogance that so many star players wore like a second skin.
Instead, he chatted with them about everything from tactics, training routines, life abroad, even ordinary things like the best restaurants near their club stadiums. And now he was revealing them about matters of big consequence.
Unconsciously, almost without realizing the shift in their perception, Varane and Griezmann came to truly feel that Julien was more than just a teammate or a senior player to admire from a distance.
He was their friend. A real one.
"Let's go," Julien said, rising from where they'd been sitting. Giroud and the others had finished their keepaway game on the field and were making their way over, faces flushed with exertion and good spirits.
Julien turned back to Varane and Griezmann, his expression warm and encouraging. "Good luck taking down Norway the day after tomorrow. I'll be waiting for you in the senior national team to play together. It's only a matter of time."
Varane and Griezmann nodded vigorously, their chests swelling with determination.
The next day began at Clairefontaine. The French senior team gathered for what would be a day dominated by tactical training.
National team training differed deeply from club training in both philosophy and execution. At the club level, coaches invested months and years into developing players' individual abilities.
But in the national team environment, there was no time for such patient cultivation. Players arrived already formed, already polished by their respective clubs. Here, they simply needed to be plug-and-play components like pieces that could slot seamlessly into the manager's tactical puzzle.
They just needed to execute the head coach's vision with precision and discipline.
"We'll have a friendly match against Japan tomorrow," Deschamps announced during a mid-morning training break, his voice carrying across the practice pitch. "It's sort of a warm-up test before the Spain match. Although it's technically a friendly, I expect you to take it seriously. Execute the tactical arrangements we've been working on and use the match to adapt to our system."
The players nodded, some more enthusiastically than others. A friendly against Japan wasn't exactly the kind of fixture that set pulses racing.
Later that afternoon, during the team meeting, Deschamps and his assistant Stéphane distributed Japan's squad list to the gathered players.
Along with the roster came their predicted starting lineup, with tactical annotations and key player profiles.
Stéphane took over the briefing, pointing to the tactical board where Japan's formation was displayed.
"You're all surely familiar with Alberto Zaccheroni. He previously coached Italian giants like AC Milan, Inter Milan, and Juventus. After taking over the Japanese national team in 2010, he led them to win the 2011 Qatar Asian Cup. In this match, they'll definitely set up defensively against us. Their preferred formation is 4-4-2, disciplined and compact."
Julien listened attentively while scanning the materials in his hand. Japan's projected 4-4-2 starting lineup was laid out in neat columns:
Goalkeeper: Eiji Kawashima
Defense: Hiroki Sakai, Yasuyuki Konno, Maya Yoshida, Yuto Nagatomo
Midfield: Yasuhito Endo, Makoto Hasebe, Kengo Nakamura, Hiroshi Kiyotake
Attack: Shinji Kagawa, Mike Havenaar
The names were mostly unfamiliar to the average French player, with one obvious exception.
"You all know how Shinji Kagawa is at Manchester United," Deschamps said, his eyes finding Patrice Evra in the group. "Patrice, why don't you tell us about him? You're teammates now. No one in this room knows him better than you do."
Evra stood up, always happy to contribute. "He's very fast—quicker than you'd expect from watching him walk around. Deceptively quick. Although he just joined Manchester United this summer, I'm already deeply impressed by what he brings. Last year under Jürgen Klopp at Dortmund..."
Evra continued with his tactical breakdown, discussing Kagawa's movement patterns, his preference for cutting inside from the left, his pressing game.
But Julien's mind had wandered down an entirely different path.
When he heard Shinji Kagawa's name, what came to mind wasn't the player's impressive performances that helped Borussia Dortmund defend their Bundesliga title. It wasn't his rapid rise to become Japan's core attacking midfielder or Manchester United's newest Asian sensation.
Rather, unexpectedly, it was the image of actress Masami Nagasawa that flickered through his consciousness.
Julien suppressed a smile at the memory. Earlier this year, after Kagawa's epic final season at Dortmund and his high-profile transfer to Manchester United, he would become a football idol across Japan.
Naturally, this celebrity status led to invitations to participate in various Japanese TV shows.
Among them, on Fuji TV's program "Thanks to Everyone," Kagawa had appeared alongside actor Shun Oguri. During their conversation, Kagawa learned that Oguri had collaborated on multiple projects with the beautiful Masami Nagasawa. His envy had been obvious, and was almost radiating off the screen.
The show's producers, sensing gold, had followed up on this revelation. And Kagawa, to his credit or loss, had been refreshingly honest about his feelings.
He'd openly admitted that Masami Nagasawa was his ideal type, the woman of his dreams. Before the show ended, he'd even delivered a lengthy, heartfelt confession into thin air, speaking directly to the camera as if Nagasawa might be watching.
The words had been earnest to the point of being sappy: something about having secretly loved Masami Nagasawa for twenty-three years, about how everything about her was absolutely perfect in his eyes, about how he'd followed her career since her earliest roles.
However, reality was less romantic than television.
Although Masami Nagasawa's father had been a Japanese international footballer which should have created some common ground, she clearly belonged to the looks-matter camp. She'd apparently rather remain romantically entangled with the hot-tempered actor Tomohisa Iseya than acknowledge Kagawa's existence.
Until Kagawa eventually retired from professional football years later, Masami Nagasawa never publicly responded to his confession.
Back in his previous life, Julien had joked with friends that Masami Nagasawa responding to Kagawa and Kevin Durant drinking Scarlett Johansson's bathwater were the two most impossible missions in the sports and entertainment world.
At the time, one of his friends had joked: "If only Kagawa had half of Shun Oguri's looks, Masami Nagasawa's response would have come immediately. But alas, genetics weren't kind to our boy."
These were all just gossip and tabloid trivia, of course.
Naturally, Julien kept these thoughts to himself rather than sharing them with Giroud beside him. Instead, he leaned slightly toward him and whispered: "Tomorrow, use your body and headers to pummel them. I'll find you with passes. They won't be able to handle your aerial presence."
"Right!" Giroud responded with quiet enthusiasm, already visualizing his headed goals.
However, Julien couldn't help but notice that most of the French team players weren't really paying serious attention to this particular match briefing.
A friendly against an Asian team—they had little genuine interest in such a game. It felt like a training exercise rather than a proper international contest.
Their attention and mental energy were clearly more focused on what came after: the crucial World Cup qualifier against Spain.
That was the main event.
That evening at Clairefontaine, Julien chatted briefly with some friends in the common area, exchanged a few text messages, then retired to bed early.
Tomorrow would be a long day, and he believed in the value of proper rest.
But 180 kilometers away in Le Havre, where France's U21 team was based for their upcoming playoff against Norway, an entirely different scene was beginning to unfold.
The coastal city's night air carried the salt-tinged breeze from the English Channel as the young French players settled into their hotel.
Griezmann sat cross-legged on one of the beds in a teammate's room, part of an impromptu gathering that had formed after dinner. Like the senior team players, the U21 squad enjoyed these informal sessions where they could talk about their lives playing abroad, share stories and gossip, complain about coaches, and generally bond over their common experiences.
The conversation flowed easily, jumping from topic to topic.
Especially, they seemed to enjoy in sharing detailed stories about the girls they'd met while playing in their respective leagues. Tales of nightclub encounters, Instagram DMs that led to dates, the advantages and disadvantages of dating locally versus maintaining relationships back home.
They chatted energetically until late into the evening.
During one of these silences in conversation, Mvila's phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen, then answered with a grin spreading across his face.
(This was a different Mvila from the senior team player of the same name.)
After a brief conversation, he hung up and turned to the group with excitement. "Yo, there's a party happening at a nightclub in Paris tonight. My boy says it's going to be crazy with proper models and everything. He's asking if we can make it."
Mvila casually mentioned this to the gathered players, and the reaction was enthusiastic.
Mavinga sat up straighter, his eyes lighting up. "Paris? How far is that?"
"Like an hour and a half, maybe two hours depending on traffic," someone else chimed in.
Ben Yedder was already on his feet. "I'm in. We can be back before anyone notices."
Niang nodded quickly. "Yeah, let's do it. When's the next time we'll get an opportunity like this?"
The energy in the room shifted from relaxed conversation to excited planning. They were already discussing which car they'd take, how they'd slip out without being noticed, what they'd tell anyone who asked where they were going.
At that moment, like a bolt of lightning lighting a dark room, Julien's words flashed through Griezmann's mind with startling clarity.
"Someone within the Football Association thinks young players are too flamboyant and wants to make an example of them."
The memory of Julien's warning echoed through Griezmann's mind.
His stomach clenched with sudden anxiety.
"Ah, you know what," Griezmann said quickly, perhaps a bit too quickly, "I didn't sleep well yesterday, plus I did that extra training session with Julien and the others. There's training tomorrow morning and then the match in the afternoon. I really can't handle staying up all night. You guys go ahead without me."
The words tumbled out in a rush, and he could hear the nervousness in his own voice.
"Hey hey hey, bro," Mvila turned to him with a persuasive grin, "you can catch some sleep in the car on the way there and back. Easy. We'll have you back in bed by 4 AM, you'll still get a few hours."
"Exactly!" Mavinga added. "Sleep is overrated anyway."
Ben Yedder approached Griezmann and winked suggestively. "Antoine, come on, don't be such a killjoy. A Paris nightclub party, you know what I'm saying? These opportunities don't come around often when you're stuck in San Sebastián."
The peer pressure was rising, and Griezmann could feel himself wavering for just a moment. Part of him, the twenty-one-year-old part that wanted to fit in, that craved excitement and adventure desperately wanted to say yes.
But then Julien's face appeared in his mind again, that serious expression when he'd delivered the warning.
"No, seriously, I'm really too tired," Griezmann insisted, shaking his head firmly. "Next time, I promise. If there's a chance, you guys come visit me in San Sebastián, I'll organize something proper for you there. My treat."
Griezmann continued to refuse, standing his ground despite their continued attempts at persuasion.
At this moment, his mindset was completely different from what it would have been just a few days ago. After becoming familiar with Julien, Giroud, Kanté, and the other senior team players, after being welcomed into their circle and treated like an equal, he'd developed a new mentality.
He thought of himself as practically half a French senior team player already, someone with a real future in the national setup, not just another youth prospect who might fade into obscurity.
He felt, with sudden clarity, that he couldn't hang with these guys anymore. Not because he didn't like them, but because they represented a version of himself he was trying to grow beyond.
After Mvila and the others tried persuading him for several more minutes without success, they finally gave up. Checking their watches and realizing they needed to leave soon if they wanted to make it to Paris at a practical hour, they hurried out of the room in excitement and whispered plans.
Griezmann watched them go, then returned to his own room down the hall.
He closed the door behind him, the click of the lock seemed unnaturally loud in the sudden silence. Lying down on his bed fully clothed, staring up at the ceiling with its generic hotel texture, he thought about everything that had just happened.
A cold wave of backdated fear came over him.
'If Julien hadn't told me in advance that the Football Association was strictly cracking down on young players' discipline issues,' he realized with growing dread, 'I definitely would have gone with them. Without question. I wouldn't have even hesitated.'
Griezmann didn't know at this moment whether his teammates would be discovered by staff or officials. He didn't know what consequences might await them if they were caught.
But the uncertainty itself was frightening enough.
Eventually, exhausted from the day's training and the emotional stress of the evening's decision, Griezmann dozed off at some unknown point.
And then he began to dream.
In the dream, Griezmann saw himself making a different choice. He saw himself laughing and agreeing to go, into the car with Mvila, Ben Yedder, Mavinga, and Niang.
The dream-version of the Paris nightclub was everything they'd hoped for: disco music, beautiful women, bottle service that made them feel like VIPs rather than young footballers.
Young hormones filled the air. The dream compressed hours into moments: dancing, drinking, laughing, making connections, taking photos they probably shouldn't have taken.
Then came the panicked return journey. On the highway back to Le Havre, sitting in the backseat of the car, dream-Griezmann kept urging the driver: "Faster, faster! We need to get back before anyone notices!"
In the dream's logic, they made it back to the hotel just in time. They attended morning training on schedule, they were slightly tired but able. They played the match against Norway that afternoon on time, and France won.
Dream-Griezmann thought everything was fine. They'd gotten away with it. The perfect crime.
Then, days later in the dream, he received a formal letter from the French Football Federation. His hands trembled as he opened it.
"...violation of team discipline...failure to respect the professional standards expected of national team players...effective immediately, you are suspended from all levels of the French national team for a period of eighteen months..."
Eighteen months.
A year and a half.
In the nightmare, the weight of those words pressed down on his chest like a crushing force. A strong sense of suffocating fear made it hard to breathe, as if someone had wrapped hands around his throat.
"No, no ban!" dream-Griezmann heard himself shouting, his voice desperate and breaking. "I want to play football! I want to play for France! Please, I'm sorry, I'll never do it again!"
But the faceless federation officials in his dream were unmoved.
"No, no, no!"
Griezmann sat up abruptly in his actual bed, his heart pounding violently against his ribs. His shirt was damp with cold sweat, his breathing rapid and shallow.
For several disorienting seconds, he couldn't distinguish dream from reality. The suspension letter had seemed so real.
Gradually, his racing heartbeat began to slow as awareness returned. Through a gap in the curtains, a ray of pale morning light seeped into the room, painting a stripe across the carpet.
It was just a dream. None of it had happened.
He hadn't gone. He'd made the right choice.
Griezmann got up, splashed cold water on his face in the small bathroom, then went downstairs to eat breakfast with the team.
Everything proceeded normally with the usual hotel buffet, teammates joking around over croissants and coffee, the comforting routine of professional football life.
After breakfast, they headed to the local training ground for their pre-match session.
Head coach Francis Baup noticed Griezmann's slightly haggard appearance. The older man approached with concern. "Didn't sleep well?" he asked, his eye immediately recognizing the signs.
Griezmann shook his head, forcing what he hoped was a convincing smile. "No, just thinking about this afternoon's match. Want to make sure we get the result we need."
Baup patted his shoulder approvingly. "Play normally, son. No one in our group is our match. Norway's decent, but we're better. Just do what you do, and we'll be fine."
The training session proceeded smoothly. It was a light workout, mostly focused on set pieces and positional awareness.
During the session, Griezmann saw Mvila, Ben Yedder, Niang, and Mavinga going through the drills just like everyone else.
Everything seemed perfectly normal. They looked tired, more tired than usual, perhaps, with slightly darker circles under their eyes. They were laughing and joking during water breaks, complaining about the cold coastal wind, behaving exactly as they always did.
No one appeared worried. No officials had pulled them aside for stern conversations. No emergency team meeting had been called.
'Maybe they got away with it,' Griezmann thought. 'Maybe nothing will happen after all.'
But after training ended and players began going back toward the locker room, vice-captain Raphaël Varane found Griezmann. His expression was serious, his voice low as he pulled Griezmann aside.
"There's trouble," Varane said quietly, glancing around to make sure no one was around them. "Last night someone violated rules and ran out of the base without permission. Multiple players. With the match coming up this afternoon, the coaching staff is suppressing it for now—they don't want the distraction. But after the match ends, there's going to be a reckoning. A serious one."
Griezmann felt his stomach drop, that nightmare feeling was returning.
Varane sighed heavily, looking older than his nineteen years. "If Julien hadn't told us that the Football Association is now specifically targeting this kind of behavior, I'd assume it would just be a warning and maybe a fine. That's how these things usually go, right? But now, knowing what we know..."
He trailed off meaningfully.
"Now I think it might actually blow up into something major. Suspension bans. Maybe lengthy ones."
Griezmann stood frozen, stunned by the confirmation that his nightmare had been a premonition of someone else's reality.
At this moment, his heart overflowed with immense gratitude toward Julien—deep, almost overwhelming relief that he'd listened to that "Football Association secret" Julien had shared.
'Otherwise,' he thought with cold certainty, 'I would have been one of them. I would have gone without a second thought.'
He turned to look across the training ground at Niang, Ben Yedder, Mvila, and Mavinga. They were still laughing and talking, shoving each other playfully, delightfully unaware of the hammer about to fall on their heads.
They had no idea what fate awaited them.
________________________________________________________
Check out my patreon where you can read more chapters:
patreon.com/LorianFiction
Thanks for your support!