The happy days were always brief.
The morning of departure had its own flavor bags by the door.
Then the drive, and the gate at Clairefontaine, and the shift back into the other life.
The training center's pitch caught the autumn sun cleanly. When Julien walked into the common room it was already busy, buzzing.
"Julien!"
Giroud was already crossing the room, arms open, face entirely lit up. He pulled Julien into a bear hug and clapped his back with both hands, the thump of pleasure at a reunion.
"Congratulations—5–0, Fulham absolutely taken apart. And that last goal." He stepped back and shook his head. "I watched it four times. The velocity on that shot. Stekelenburg barely moved. It was unbelievable"
"He got a hand to it."
"It didn't matter." Giroud spread his hands. "Didn't matter at all. The ball was in the net before the save happened." He grinned. "You've settled in quickly, brother. Quicker than anyone expected."
Arsenal had finished their match only the previous day, so the man had probably made the journey back to Paris overnight. The schedule Giroud lived with this season was something else entirely. Liverpool had three matches this month outside of international week. Arsenal had six.
Julien smiled and shifted it. "How did Arsenal get on in your last match?"
At the mention of Arsenal, the joy on Giroud's face crumpled instantly into a pained grimace. He spread his hands helplessly.
"Don't ask me." He said it with dramatic agony. "We couldn't crack United at Old Trafford. Lost 0–1. One goal. Defensive mistake in the second half, completely avoidable, and that was it."
"Don't worry," Julien said. "You're still first in the table. The quality is there."
"By one point!" Giroud's voice rose. "One point between us now, Arsenal twenty-three, Liverpool twenty-two. You're second. I thought we had breathing room and now there's no breathing room at all." He exhaled heavily.
Julien paused at that. He hadn't actually checked the standings.
He smiled. "Good. That's how it should be. The tighter the competition, the more it means to fight for it."
Giroud stared at him for a moment and joked. "Easy to say from second place." But he was already half-smiling.
As the two of them talked, more teammates drifted over Matuidi, Pogba, others each one bringing his club's recent form into the conversation, the room was filling with the overlapping accounts of weeks that had been lived separately.
Then Varane came in from outside and crossed straight to Julien, his face was open and bright.
"Raphaël." Julien went to meet him. "Tragedy that you're not at Liverpool. Our backline would love you. Agger and you side by side, we'd concede nothing."
Varane's eyebrow went up. "Tragedy that you're not at the Bernabéu. Madrid fans would genuinely lose their minds. Ronaldo and you in the same attack—" He shook his head as though contemplating something wonderful.
They looked at each other and both laughed at once, and the teammates around them joined in.
"Enough!" Giroud's voice carried across the room. "Both of you — stop poaching each other. We're all here now. Save it."
The room filled up and stayed full. Conversation about clubs and form gave way to the first, tentative conversations about Brazil, what Deschamps might ask, which combinations had potential, what it would take to go the distance next summer.
Deschamps walked in.
The room settled without being asked. He wore a dark tracksuit and carried himself slowly like he has been thinking carefully about what he wants to say and has finished thinking. He lifted one hand briefly as he reached the center of the room, and waited for the last conversations to close.
"Welcome back." He looked around slowly. "You've all been pushing hard at your clubs. I know the schedule has been demanding. But that's behind us now—the focus shifts here. To France."
He let that settle, then continued.
"These are friendlies. I'm not after results this window. I'm testing combinations, refining our tactical shape, and continuing the work of understanding how this group functions together under pressure.
What I need from each of you is straightforward: rest properly, get your bodies right, and then be fully present on the pitch. The more you communicate and connect in this camp, the better we function when the matches matter."
He dropped his tone slightly, becoming practical. "France's future is in your hands. If we stay united and each of you brings what you're capable of, we can do something significant in Brazil next summer. Now—out to the pitch. Let's warm up."
The applause that followed was genuine and full.
On the pitch, Deschamps stepped back and let Stéphane take the warm-up. He stood at the edge and watched, running his own quiet analysis alongside the session rather than directing it, cataloguing, comparing, storing observations for conversations he had already planned.
As the session wound down and the players began to slow, Deschamps caught Julien's eye and inclined his head toward the touchline in a small, specific gesture that meant: come here, just you.
They stood apart from the group. The autumn sun was low and direct now, casting shadows across the pitch. Deschamps folded his arms and looked out at the players finishing their patterns, giving himself a moment before he started.
"Klopp was right to put you at ten," he said, without other things. "The comfort in how you receive the ball now—it wasn't there when you were wider. I can see it from the touchline."
"It gives me more ways in," Julien said. "More angles on the game."
"It does." Deschamps kept his eyes on the pitch as he spoke. "I watched Fulham carefully. Your carrying under pressure, the two directional shifts before the fifth goal, the way you created the space from nothing, that's a real weapon. But what I want to talk about is the next layer. Because a free-forward role isn't just receiving the ball in good positions."
He crouched, picked up a ball from the grass, and began rolling it slowly back and forth under his palm as he continued.
"In my system, that position is the front-line brain, the engine. Before the ball reaches you, I need you to have already identified three options not just Olivier in front of you, but the winger cutting inside and the midfielder arriving late from behind. All three, simultaneously, before your first touch. So, the first touch is already a decision, not a pause."
"I do that at Liverpool," Julien said. "Klopp wants that read."
"You do it in transition," Deschamps said. "Against a high press, in open space, where the decisions come quickly and the instinct takes over. What I want is the same habit against a low block, when the game has slowed and the decisions are less obvious."
He set the ball down and straightened. "Here we sit deeper than Liverpool. We counter-attack more. The game reaches you differently, with less space, more bodies between you and the goal, more time on the ball but less room to use it.
What that position needs in those moments is horizontal movement before vertical. Side to side across their defensive line, dragging the shape, creating the overload on one side and then switching, that stretches them in ways that running at their backline directly doesn't. Learn when to slow it down."
Julien nodded, thinking through it. "And in transition, do I stay high to give depth, or drop to get on the ball and organize?"
Deschamps looked at him steadily. "Neither. Always."
He let that sit for a second. "The position has no fixed answer. That's what makes it difficult and what makes it valuable. With space behind their line— o high, go fast, be the depth that commits their last defender. Against a packed block, drop into midfield, collect, draw the press, drift wide if it opens the center. The point is reading what the game needs and adjusting before anyone tells you to."
He reached across to the bench for the small tactics board and rearranged the pieces quickly.
"When they're compact and deep which you'll face more here than at Liverpool, because Klopp's press draws teams out, whereas we invite them to organize—don't force the vertical run.
Move into their blind spots instead. Behind the center-back's shoulder. Between their defensive line and the covering midfielder. Make them uncertain about where you are. That uncertainty forces decisions, and decisions forced under uncertainty produce errors. The goal isn't always to beat the defender. Sometimes it's to make him guess wrong.
You have exceptional technical quality," Deschamps went on, "but the heart of this free-forward role is combination play, not individual action. For example in the national team context, try making more layoff passes from just outside the box. Let Paul, or Blaise arrive late and shoot. That kind of move disorientates defensive structures in ways that individual dribbling rarely does."
He set the board down.
"One more thing. The players here are not your club teammates. You and Suárez have hundreds of sessions in your legs; you know from the shape of his run what he wants before he's made it. You don't have that with Olivier yet, or with Franck."
He said it as a fact, not a criticism. "So, pay attention to what each man actually needs from you. Olivier is exceptional in the air strong, dominant, brilliant at holding and laying off under pressure. Feet are not his strength, particularly on sharp, low passes in tight spaces. Give him balls into space to run onto, or firm and into his chest where he can use his physique.
Don't ask him to control a fast ground pass under a defender's pressure—it's not where he's best. Franck is built around the first yard of acceleration. That initial burst, the change of direction at top speed, that's his weapon. To unlock it, deliver the ball slightly ahead of where he's running, not to where he is. Read the run early and trust it. If you wait to be certain, the moment has already gone."
Julien was quiet for a beat, letting it organize itself properly. Then he looked up. "What you're describing for the counter-attack phase—that's close to what Klopp wants from me already. The staying high, the timing of the run. The difference is what happens when the space isn't there?"
"Exactly right." Deschamps gave a short, approving nod. "Klopp's system opens the space before you arrive in it. Ours doesn't always. So, the skill that transfers is the instinct for the run. The skill you're developing here is what to do when the run doesn't have space to go into yet.
When the opposition is sitting deep and compact, the most dangerous thing you can do is not force your way through — it's to move into the defenders' blind spots. Think of yourself as a shadow. Make them uncertain about where you are and where you're going. That uncertainty is its own weapon."
Julien studied the board carefully, something clicking into place behind his eyes.
"Klopp has given you a tremendous foundation," Deschamps continued, his tone warming slightly.
"Your development at Liverpool has been remarkable, much faster than I anticipated. When you played Arsenal, you hadn't quite found your footing yet in that role. But that was early days. And then unexpectedly, things at Liverpool changed so quickly.
As it turns out, that worked in your favor. You'll be able to transition into the national team setup much more smoothly now."
He set the board down. "What I hope for is that you merge the flexibility of the number ten with the creative unpredictability of a true free-forward. Stop seeing yourself as purely a striker or an attacking runner. Become a complete player in this position."
Julien looked up, his gaze clear and steady. "Understood, Coach. I'll work on all of this in training and I'll carry it into my performances at Liverpool too. I'll find my way into this role."
"It does." Deschamps gave a single firm nod. "If anything needs clarifying, come and find me during the week. Or talk to Klopp when you're back, the two of you are thinking about this position in the same language, and that continuity will serve you." He paused, then said it plainly. "Come next summer's World Cup, I want you as one of our key players."
"I will be."
Julien turned and jogged back onto the pitch.
He dropped into the group without ceremony, calling for the ball, moving into space before it arrived, his head already up and reading the positions around him. The voices of his teammates came up around him, the sounds of the session resuming.
From the touchline, From the touchline, Deschamps watched him go, and allowed himself a quiet smile.
Deschamps watched him go.
This young man who would turn nineteen at the end of the month, he was France's hope.
From what he had just seen, growing stronger was what Julien was going to do regardless of what anyone asked of him. The only question was how far.
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