Rothen took the ball and hugged Julien.
He certainly knew Julien wasn't giving him the penalty because he was afraid to take it. Julien simply wanted him to score a goal in the last match of 2012.
Just like the chances he'd just created for Lukaku and Mane.
Rothen didn't refuse.
Nancy's players didn't dispute the penalty call with the referee much either, there was no point.
Rothen placed the ball on the penalty spot.
In that instant, many things flashed through his mind—
There were scenes from Caen's youth academy, harboring dreams about football, training with sweaty dedication; there were moments at Monaco reaching his professional peak, crowned with countless cheers and honors; and there were the falling out with coaches at PSG, becoming estranged from teammates, and those times of drifting from place to place.
Since his first-team debut in 1997, fifteen years had passed.
About to enter the sixteenth year.
The once-talented youngster, the former Ligue 1 assist king—all scattered across the pitch with time.
There were two ways for veterans to leave.
One was a legendary curtain call, accepting countless cheers and applause from fans, ending a glorious career amidst flowers and tears.
The other was like Rothen's original path: being released, quietly, with even his retirement decision like a drop of water falling into water.
But everything had changed when Julien came to his side.
Rothen understood the gap between ordinary people and geniuses. At least he once thought he was among the geniuses, until now seeing Julien, he realized that even geniuses were ranked in tiers.
Being an ordinary genius was just the threshold for distinguishing Julien's talent.
Tweet!!
The referee's whistle scattered all of Rothen's thoughts. Only that football remained in his eyes.
His gaze fixed solely on that football.
The entire stadium fell silent, all anticipating Rothen's penalty kick.
The fans clearly weren't nervous, this was merely icing on the cake; they'd already won.
But for Rothen, this meant a great deal.
Whoosh!
Rothen exhaled, then ran up without any pause, regardless of whether the keeper would guess his shooting direction.
In his mind was only the top corner of the goal!
Boom!
The ball left his foot, heading straight for the top of the goal. Without any surprise, the ball went exactly as Rothen had imagined many times, even though Gregorini guessed the direction, there was nothing he could do.
4-0.
A first-half rout!
Rothen didn't celebrate but immediately turned toward Julien's direction, arms spread wide. Julien walked up and embraced him tightly.
Rothen said nothing, just held Julien in the jubilation of twenty thousand fans at Cesari Stadium.
Then Lukaku and the others gathered around as well.
On the sideline.
Fernandez slumped dejectedly in the coach's seat. It was over.
This match had ended at just halftime.
Bastia didn't go for the kill either. After halftime, Hadzibegic told Bastia's players to "take it easy."
So, when the second half began, though Nancy still couldn't get possession, with Bastia intentionally easing off, Nancy's defensive pressure lightened considerably.
Julien was substituted off in the 55th minute.
"Julien!"
The fans in the stands shouted Julien's name frantically. They knew that after tonight, they'd have to wait until next year for another chance to watch Julien play.
After giving the captain's armband to Rothen, Julien turned to leave the pitch.
As he walked, he waved his arms toward the stands.
"Julien!"
"JULIEN!!"
The shouts were endless.
After leaving the pitch, Julien hugged Hadzibegic. "Rest well and enjoy your Christmas holiday."
Julien smiled and nodded, returning to the bench.
Yes, his matches for this year had ended here.
The second half's overall pace was quite slow. Perhaps because the score gap was too large, both sides were waiting for the match to end so they could enjoy their long-awaited holiday.
They had about ten or more days of rest.
Though the match pace was slow, with no goals and not even many spectacular moments, the fans in the stands still sang and danced, seemingly already using this opportunity to start enjoying their Christmas holiday early.
Everyone at Bastia wore smiles.
This half-season, Bastia had been incredibly successful, creating too many club records.
In this celebration.
Tweet!!
The referee blew the final whistle!
Nancy's players relaxed and felt relieved; Bastia's players erupted in wild celebration, with bench players rushing onto the pitch to celebrate with teammates.
They were half-season champions!
Though as Hadzibegic said, the half-season championship wasn't a substantive title, its boost to Bastia's morale was immeasurable.
At least at this moment, from players to fans to management, everyone knew one answer: Bastia winning the championship wasn't a pipe dream; it was an achievable goal!
This was the greatest significance of this half-season championship!
Bang!!
Just as everyone was celebrating, suddenly a loud boom startled everyone, making them look toward the source.
"Whoa!"
Everyone couldn't help but exclaim: it was fireworks!
Someone was setting off fireworks outside the stadium.
Bang!
Fireworks bloomed one after another in the winter night, in all colors and varieties, their light illuminating the surroundings of Cesari.
As the fireworks ignited.
"Bastia!"
Orderly shouts came from the ultras section, and simultaneously a tifo appeared, well, there hadn't been a tifo at kickoff, but one appeared post-match.
On the giant tifo, white text on a blue background read "2012."
Just as everyone's attention was drawn to this tifo, someone set fire to one corner, which then instantly burned—of course, only the last "2" burned.
Revealing the white "3" underneath.
A very simple tifo.
Watching this scene, Julien couldn't help but think of a phrase:
"Goodbye, 2012."
.....
"God! You have no idea how deafening the roar from the stands was when you scored. I was in it, and I felt like my eardrums would burst. Don't you believe me? Ask William, isn't that right, William?"
In Mbappé's fast chatter, Saliba nodded blankly.
Saliba still hadn't recovered from the fact that Julien had invited them to fly back to Paris with him!
Mbappé seemed to have known about this in advance and was even the one who brought Saliba to find Julien.
Mbappé continued, "Really, any football fan in France can't escape admiring you. You're absolutely unique in France right now."
After listening for a while, Julien changed the subject. "How are things going with Monaco?"
At Julien's question, Mbappé's smile grew even brighter. "I should thank you for this. If not for you, we might still be wasting time looking for teams willing to give me a professional opportunity.
Now our negotiations with Monaco are going very smoothly. My parents and I all think Monaco might be more suitable for me than Caen. We've lowered some of our compensation demands, more importantly, we hope for the possibility of playing time."
Julien could hear the yearning in Mbappé's words.
Every youth player longed for that day they'd step onto the professional stage, whether Ligue 1, Ligue 2, or even the National League.
This was a player's dream.
"Congratulations, Kylian. Your dream is about to come true."
Saliba sincerely congratulated Mbappé. Both he and Mbappé had difficult circumstances as children. They attended the same elementary school, and Mbappé's father had even been Saliba's football coach. You could say they both knew each other's dreams.
More than once, they'd shared the same bed, talking about the stories they saw on TV.
Like every French fan, they longed to replicate the stories of French stars like Deschamps and Zidane.
To become the pride of all France.
After the plane landed, Julien took Mbappé, his brother, and Saliba to meet up with Pierre.
Pierre had borrowed a seven-seat commercial van to pick them up.
Julien first took Mbappé and the others home, mainly because France's public transportation had just resumed during this period and was still somewhat chaotic, so he gave them a ride along the way.
Just the week before, France had gone on strike again!
This strike lasted until December 22nd before gradually subsiding. You could only say this was France's traditional skill.
December 13th to 14th.
A nationwide cross-industry general strike initiated by the CGT and other unions to protest the government's labor policy reforms, particularly regulations prioritizing company agreements over industry agreements. Paris Metro and SNCF employees all participated.
Of course, according to news reports Julien had read, the Paris Metro system hadn't erupted in a new large-scale complete strike.
The unions' claim that this strike might "continue until Christmas" was more of a pressure tactic. In reality, starting from the 22nd, they'd begun fully restoring service to ensure holiday travel.
You could only say that in France, striking was an excellent negotiation technique.
After dropping off Mbappé and the others, Pierre finally took Julien home.
On the road.
Pierre didn't chat about family matters but instead asked about the situation after the winter window. "Now these teams all know we'll make some contacts after the winter window. It'll definitely be busy then. Do you have any preferred teams? Or any requirements? So, I can contact them and discuss this matter."
Julien actually only had a vague idea about the transfer, but he definitely had requirements. "There aren't traditional requirements per se. I hope you can subtly sound them out about the team's goals, or see their 'ambition.'"
"Ambition?"
Pierre was somewhat puzzled but instantly understood. "You want to join a title-contending team?"
Julien nodded. "They might not have championship-level strength right now, but they must have a championship-aspiring heart. I don't want to coast along. I want to win."
As he said this, Julien's gaze swept toward the car window.
Paris already had a holiday atmosphere.
Pierre agreed with Julien's thinking. "Right, we should pursue honors. I think you have a chance to become the next French Ballon d'Or winner. You're the only one in France with the best hope right now. Of course, this isn't because you're my son and I'm biased toward you, I'm speaking from an objective standpoint."
"Haha, thanks." Julien laughed.
Pierre laughed too.
After settling this matter, the two chatted sporadically and soon arrived home.
Even though Julien now had sufficiently high income, the De Rocca couple still lived in their old house, because in their view, Julien's income was Julien's, not theirs.
Usually only the De Rocca couple lived in the old house, so it was still fairly spacious. But today, with all six children returning home, it could no longer accommodate them like when they were young.
The house only had three bedrooms: the De Rocca couple's master bedroom and two secondary bedrooms.
When Julien was young, he'd shared a bedroom with Loup and his younger brother Les.
The eldest brother was oldest and started working earliest, so back then the sisters shared a room while the three brothers shared another.
Julien entered the house and greeted his brothers and sisters. They all hugged Julien with surprise and told him about everything they'd seen and heard.
"You're now the idol of our entire school! Even Lucy, our school's heartthrob, came to talk to me. She wants a signed jersey from you, brother."
Les shared his school experience.
"Hahaha."
Everyone laughed.
Julien had always been quiet and reserved, so in this atmosphere, his not talking much didn't matter to anyone.
After all, in his siblings' eyes, their brother was a genius and was always a bit different.
In the afternoon.
The whole family went out together to buy some things to prepare for tonight's Christmas Eve.
While others were shopping, Loup found Julien and told him, "Jules, I feel like I can't keep playing. In this internal selection, I couldn't advance to the next tier, I was held back again."
Julien patted his shoulder. "This is very normal. Don't be discouraged. You can certainly become an excellent player, provided you don't lose faith in yourself because of a temporary setback, okay?"
Loup looked into Julien's eyes.
Suddenly his mind recalled various past events about his brother, and combined with Julien's words, a glimmer of understanding appeared in his eyes.
Yes, he'd been focused on Julien's achievements but had overlooked what Julien had experienced before, especially going to prison.
Loup nodded vigorously.
"So don't worry, everything will get better. I promise, as long as you don't give up on football, football won't give up on you. Maybe we all have a dream of becoming a star, but ultimately not everyone will be a star. But we can each be the star of our own story."
Julien wanted to say more, but the others had finished shopping and were calling them to leave together.
Loup was still pondering Julien's words. At his family's beckoning, he gathered his thoughts and followed.
This kind of family activity was something Julien had rarely experienced since transmigrating. It turned out he found it very peaceful.
It was very comfortable.
After returning home in the afternoon, his mother and others began tidying things up, while Julien shut himself in his room.
He needed to refine that article.
He needed to write out his story.
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