Let's get right to it.
After Pierre left, Julien wasted no time booting up his computer and beginning to write an open letter in his own hand.
As far as he was concerned, this World Cup run of his had been nothing short of legendary.
To shatter every kind of World Cup record on his very first appearance—what more could he possibly want?
If there really was one thing he still wanted, though—it was to defend the title.
To do what so many top teams before him had never managed: three World Cups in a row.
After all, teams that had defended the title once already existed—Italy had won back-to-back in 1934 and 1938, and Brazil had done the same in 1958 and 1962.
So, he wanted to take his France further. And the current core of this French squad was more than capable of it.
The more he thought about it, the faster his fingers moved on the keyboard.
[
To everyone who loves football, who carries a dream in their heart—An Open Letter from Julien De Rocca
Dear friends,
As I write this, the night has grown deep, and the roar of our World Cup celebration is still ringing in my ears. My palm still seems to hold the warmth of the World Cup trophy—it's a feeling that's genuinely addictive.
We need victories, we need championships, to keep feeding that addiction.
When I saw the messages piling up on social media, saw all of your blessings, I understood—it isn't only me who needs this championship. You need it too.
This trophy was never mine alone. It belongs to everyone who has supported me, who loves football, who carries a dream.
This World Cup, for me, has been a journey I'll carry with me forever.
From the very start, when Franck was ruled out through injury, through match after match won, step by step, all the way to the final—and what a final it was!
The moment we lifted the trophy, everyone embraced with tears gushing and burning hot.
These moments, on the pitch and off it, have come together into my most precious memory of this World Cup, and they've taught me what football really means—it was never just a string of matches, never just a string of goals.
It's more like a mirror. It reflects our persistence, our unity, the courage we find to grow through setbacks.
A lot of people say I'm a genius—that winning the World Cup at twenty, scoring four goals in the final, must simply be luck.
But I want to tell you all: so-called luck is nothing more than day-after-day's effort, a refusal to ever give up, and most of all, the courage to scrape your way back up from rock bottom.
At eleven, I entered the Clairefontaine academy, and on the strength of a little talent, became the prodigy everyone at the academy had their eye on.
At fourteen, I was fortunate enough to join Chelsea's youth academy, where I honed myself in a far more professional environment.
At sixteen, I made it onto Chelsea's first-team roster.
Even though I never once took the pitch, that recognition was enough to convince me I could go further in football.
But fate has a cruel sense of humour. On the night of my seventeenth birthday, one moment of foolishness and impulse led me to rob a perfume shop—for the sake of a few dozen euros—I nearly destroyed my own life, nearly destroyed the football I had loved my whole life.
That stretch of time was the darkest low point of my life. I lost my freedom, lost my chance to play, was doubted, was written off—even abandoned by everyone.
Countless nights I laid awake in regret, hating myself for my own stupidity, terrified I would never make it back onto the pitch.
But I want to say—this isn't only about football. It's about life.
What football has taught me was never just how to win. It taught me how to face setbacks, how to stand back up from the lowest point, how to give everything, without ever giving up, for the goal in your heart.
On that front, my teammate N'Golo Kanté is the best example there is.
As recently as the season before last, he was still playing in Ligue 2, working away silently with hardly anyone knowing his name. And now he's gone from Ligue 2 to the Premier League, from an unknown player to Premier League champion, to standing beside us on the World Cup podium.
He's shown everyone, through his own actions, that an ordinary background and quiet perseverance will shine through in the end.
After I got out, I trained like my life depended on it. I knew that only football could help me find myself again.
In training, mistake after mistake, fall after fall—I never gave up, because I knew every mistake was a chance to grow.
Every fall was just one more step toward standing taller.
In life, too, we run into these same mistakes and falls—maybe it's a wall you've hit in school, a setback at work, an obstacle on the road to your dream, or even a mistake made in one foolish moment.
But believe me—these setbacks and mistakes were never meant to defeat us. They're meant to temper us, to make us stronger, more resolute, to give us the support we need.
I know that a lot of young friends out there, just like me, carry a dream of their own in their hearts.
Maybe your dream isn't football. Maybe you're silently grinding away at it right now. Maybe you're lost at this very moment. Maybe you're being doubted, being dismissed—maybe someone's even told you you're too young, that you can't do it, that you're too young and should just settle for what you have.
But I want to tell every young person reading this: being young was never the problem. It's our greatest advantage.
The French national team is the best proof of that!
Most of us on this championship squad are young, just like me—Paul, Antoine, Raphaël, N'Golo, and all the rest of the brothers. We're young, so we dare to fight, dare to push forward. We have endless energy, a toughness that refuses to lose, the courage to start over from nothing.
Being young was never our weakness—it's our sharpest armour!
It was exactly that youthful power, that fearless drive, that carried us through opponent after opponent, riding a storm of youth that swept the whole tournament, all the way to lifting that trophy.
Like me—I was once just a kid who loved football, who never would have dared imagine standing on the final stage of the World Cup, lifting that trophy, setting a record of my own.
Please remember this:
a dream is never some impossible luxury out of reach. It's the light inside us, the force that carries us forward.
The road to it may not be smooth. It may be full of bumps and setbacks.
But as long as we hold that love in our hearts, keep our feet on the ground, and give everything we have—as long as we honour every ounce of effort and never let a single chance slip by—the dreams we've held closest to our hearts will come true in the end.
It's just like a football match. No matter how lopsided the score, no matter how little time is left, as long as it isn't over yet, there's still hope. As long as we keep running, keep refusing to stop, a miracle is still possible.
Life is the same way. As long as we never give up chasing the dream, we will, without fail, shine on the track that belongs to us.
This World Cup title is a finish line—but even more than that, it's a starting line.
I'll carry this honour forward, carry all of your support with me, and keep moving ahead.
At the next European Championship, my teammates and I will give everything we have, together, and go after new glory.
Last of all, I want to thank every fan who has ever supported me, thank my family, my teammates, my coaches—thank everyone who has walked beside me and cheered me on along this road to my dream.
It's your support that has given me boundless strength; it's your trust that has made me stand that much firmer.
May every one of you who loves football, who carries a dream in your heart, walk forward bravely with that love and that persistence.
Please believe this: football will never fail the effort you put into it, and life will never fail anyone chasing a dream. The dream you've fought so hard for will arrive, right on schedule, one day.
Carry your love in your heart, and set out toward the dream; never forget why you started, and you will see it through to the very end.
With love, Julien]
The moment Julien finished writing all of this in one sitting, he suddenly felt like the words had come out sounding a bit too much like empty platitudes.
Words like these might not have the power to inspire anyone at all, really.
How to put it.
For some people, dreams simply don't stand a chance against reality.
When the path upward has been completely sealed off, when everything comes down to talent and resources, going on and on about effort and dreams starts to feel almost cruel.
But Julien decided not to change it after all.
He himself didn't believe it.
But someone out there would. And if just one person believed it, and it changed their life even a little, then everything he'd written here would have been worth it.
And besides—Julien had already thought this through: this piece absolutely had to be posted. In 2014, right at this juncture, the world economy was still on the rise, and he hoped that whoever read this could make the most of what was left of that window—less than ten years now, before the upheaval of COVID-19 and the accelerating rise of AI would reshape the world—and truly give it everything they had.
Because a few years from now, that window would be much harder to find, and hard work alone might no longer be enough to get the same opportunities.
He read it over one last time.
Then Julien posted it, just like that.
It wasn't long before the site pinned the piece to the top, and fans came flooding in by the thousands.
And in the comments, they poured their hearts out.
"You've shown us with your own life what it means to turn things around, what it means to never give up! Julien, you are truly incredible!"
"Reading what you wrote about Kanté genuinely moved me. Both of you are proof that quiet, ordinary persistence shines through in the end. You said football is life, and you're right—everyone hits a low point, but if you just don't give up, your own moment in the spotlight will come!"
"Being young was never the problem—it's the advantage!"
"As a Liverpool fan, I am so proud right now! Liverpool stands with you—let's go take that damn Champions League together!"
"Reading your letter, I finally understand—so-called luck was never an accident. Julien, you really are the true GOAT of football now!"
Countless other fans left simple but heartfelt blessings besides.
"Julien, you're the role model!"
"Thank you for this letter—it healed every bit of confusion I was carrying…"
"May you wander every world and still love football just the same…"
Tens of thousands of comments came together into the warmest kind of strength.
Down in the comments, plenty of people were also sharing their own stories, encouraging every single soul out there chasing a dream from the bottom of a hole.
Watching all of this, Julien smiled too.
This, he thought, was what love for the game looked like.
The night passed without incident.
The next day, Julien woke up still not quite used to it, after all, for the coming month, there would be no training, no matches.
He could finally rest, properly.
The whole of the past season, he'd barely had a moment's break—fighting on three domestic fronts, and then the World Cup on top of it.
As he ate breakfast, Julien scrolled through the news on his phone.
All sorts of things.
Among them, in the stories about Argentina, Julien saw no shortage of criticism aimed at Messi.
After all, in this World Cup, Argentina had fought their way through to the final, and had they won it, Messi would have surpassed Maradona to become Argentina's new king—the match had even been framed as Messi's coronation.
But things hadn't gone as planned. Argentina had suffered a crushing defeat to France.
In the end, they'd only managed the runner-up trophy.
Messi hadn't been able to lead the Pampas Eagles to the title the way Maradona once had.
After the match, plenty of fans had turned on Messi with harsh words, insisting it was his underwhelming performance that had cost Argentina the championship.
Every bit of blame landed straight on his shoulders.
Julien found this kind of talk pretty pointless, honestly.
They lost, so blame Messi. Then why not blame everyone else too?
Was it because everyone already knew the others simply didn't have that level of ability?
Or was it that the others just weren't football players, somehow?
It was ridiculous, really.
Meanwhile, for every person blaming Messi, there was someone else defending him.
After two days of this brewing in the press, Mascherano stepped forward to speak up for Messi.
Facing reporters—after tearing his own groin in the semifinal and playing through it—he said: "They're attacking Messi because they're being far too extreme about this, and it isn't fair to him at all. Without him, Argentina never makes it to the final in the first place. You can see it every time he steps on the pitch—he gives everything he has, and he's a constant threat out there. He's our treasure."
As for the future of the team's head coach, Sabella, Mascherano also came out firmly in his support: "I hope I get to keep playing for Sabella. I hope he stays on. He's brought us advanced ideas and tactics."
He went on to say: "Sabella is always completely dedicated to his job. He's a role model for the players, and he's genuinely talented as a coach too. He's been in charge of the national team for three years now, and I hope he keeps going."
Toward this veteran coach, Mascherano was full of gratitude: "He puts everything into his work, and he's constantly encouraging me—he's the reason I've become more and more important to this team, the reason I have the confidence I have."
Of course, even though Argentina had only taken home the runner-up trophy, that was still enough to leave some Argentine fans thrilled.
After all, they hadn't even touched a World Cup final in more than twenty years—reaching the runner-up spot this time already felt close to perfect!
And so, back home in Argentina, Mascherano found himself treated like an outright hero.
According to interviews with Argentine media, even his neighbours said they were proud of him: "The most wonderful thing has genuinely happened, right in the middle of our lives. We gave everything we had for a dream—what a thing to get to enjoy!"
Well. In this era, people everywhere in the world still believed in dreams.
As Julien kept scrolling through one piece of news after another, his phone suddenly rang, a call was coming in from England.
It was David.
Julien had a pretty good guess what he wanted to talk about, because he'd just seen an English media outlet publish an article.
The headline read: "The World Cup Effect: Liverpool in Talks with a String of Rising Stars—Klopp Building a World Cup Team to Surpass Barcelona's Dream Trio!"
News like this usually wasn't baseless.
So clearly, Liverpool was about to make some big moves this summer!
Julien found himself looking forward to it. He picked up the call.
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