France's 4–0 friendly rout of Norway had come to a satisfying close.
The players walked back toward the locker room one by one, while Deschamps found himself swallowed up by a crowd of reporters waiting by the players' tunnel.
A quick post-match interview got underway.
The reporters had assumed Deschamps would ride the big win, lift morale, and start talking up the World Cup.
But what came out of his mouth instead left every reporter in the room visibly startled.
Every other team was sharpening its claws for the World Cup. Deschamps, meanwhile, seemed to think Les Bleus simply weren't good enough and were mid-table at best.
"I'm certainly going to Brazil with big ambitions," Deschamps said, "but maybe I'm just an idealist. There's no denying it—six or seven teams are stronger than we are. In our last three World Cups, across nine group-stage matches, we've won exactly once—against Togo, back in 2006."
As the words fell, the reporters traded startled glances.
After all, France's rotated lineup had just demolished Norway by a lopsided score, showing strong form and the first-choice squad wasn't lacking either.
There was Julien De Rocca, a top-tier rising star, and Ribéry, a veteran who'd come close to the Ballon d'Or.
And yet here was Deschamps, talking the team down to the reporters, it almost sounded absurd.
Deschamps didn't offer much more by way of explanation.
Then, a reporter brought up France's history of dressing-room strife, and asked whether that was part of the reasoning behind leaving out Nasri, Ben Arfa, and Benzema this time.
Deschamps didn't answer directly.
Instead, he said something that, on its face, seemed to have nothing to do with the question. "It's not the players' fault that they become rich men before they've achieved anything. But money gives them power.
Agents, parents, brothers, friends, they cluster around these players because they need the money, and they keep influencing them, until eventually the relationship with the coach suffers for it."
Deschamps paused, then went on. "You'll never see players today sitting around a table playing poker.
They're always on some app, on their phones, on the internet and it's made them isolated, self-absorbed. They talk to each other less, share less.
You can't fight that. All you can do is adapt, change with it. And that only makes the coach's job harder."
Those words let the reporters catch a glimpse of just how unhappy Deschamps was with a number of his players which, honestly, was understandable.
Getting torn apart publicly by a player's girlfriend and still keeping your cool—you'd have to be a saint to able to do that.
After the match, the entire French squad boarded a bus back to the hotel to rest.
Everyone had already tucked away the thrill of victory—they all knew this had just been a meaningless friendly.
It was only the starting point of World Cup preparations. Over the next few days, they'd stay on in Nice, training hard for the second warm-up match.
Their next opponent was: Paraguay.
The mood around the squad, though, was fairly relaxed.
Between training sessions, the players would sometimes gather to chat—it was nothing more than just some idle conversation.
May 29th, morning.
Sunlight spilled through the glass windows of the hotel lobby. Julien sat in the lounge area with Giroud and Varane, talking about the league season and things like that.
Just then, without anyone quite meaning to, all their eyes turned toward the hotel entrance.
Ribéry was dressed casually, his face was haggard, brows were knit tight. The team doctor walked beside him. The two of them moved briskly with hurried footsteps, as if they were racing against time—there was no sign of slowing down, and stopping.
Julien's heart dropped. His unease gelled instantly into a bad feeling.
Right then, Deschamps stepped out of the elevator too, his expression was grave.
One of the players went up to ask what was going on. Deschamps waved a hand. "Franck's going to the hospital. Don't think too much into it. Training continues as normal."
A simple sentence but it was enough to make everyone in the room sense that something was wrong.
Julien already had his answer.
Putting it together with what Deschamps had told him earlier—that Ribéry's back injury hadn't fully healed, he was nearly certain: the injury had flared up again, and it probably wasn't good.
Otherwise, Ribéry wouldn't be hurrying off to the hospital with the team doctor at his side, and Deschamps wouldn't be wearing a face like that.
Even with Ribéry's condition weighing on their minds, the players still followed Deschamps's instructions and headed to the training ground on schedule.
During the session, everyone stayed focused, but there was a heaviness in the air that hadn't been there before.
Every so often someone would murmur about Ribéry with worry across their face. Everyone understood just how important he was to this French team.
Soon enough, the morning session wrapped up, and the players headed back to the hotel to rest.
By midday, word that Ribéry had left the squad for the hospital had already leaked to the press.
In no time, the major outlets were all running the story, and it exploded into a wave of speculation.
The reports noted that this summer, France's opening World Cup match would come on June 15th against Honduras with Switzerland and Ecuador rounding out the group stage.
The reports also pointed out that, going by the calendar, Ribéry still had roughly two weeks to recover. It wasn't a lot of time and if the injury turned out to be serious enough, they couldn't rule out yet another star being forced to sit out the World Cup.
Alongside that, several outlets ran roundups of other big names who wouldn't be making it to the tournament.
Gareth Bale, Lewandowski, Ibrahimović, Čech—such players who missed out simply because their national teams hadn't qualified weren't part of the list.
The focus was on stars who hadn't even made their squads.
Among them, two enormous names stood out: Ronaldinho and Kaká.
The rest included Tevez, Nasri, Ashley Cole, and others.
When the conversation turned to Ribéry, the media didn't mince words: as a national treasure of French football, he was indispensable to the team, in skill, in experience, in leadership. If he couldn't play in the World Cup, it would be a great blow to Les Bleus.
Some outlets even put together a retrospective of stars who'd missed World Cups to injury in the past.
The first name on every list: the notoriously unlucky Pep Guardiola.
As the most successful manager in Spanish football history, Guardiola's luck as a player had been anything but kind—injuries cost him two separate World Cups.
On the eve of the 1998 World Cup, Guardiola—then the midfield anchor of the Spanish national team tore ligaments in his right knee and completely missed the trip to France. Stripped of their linchpin, La Roja crashed out in the group stage.
In 2002, disaster struck again. In early May, playing for Brescia against Juventus, Guardiola suffered a severe tear to the medial collateral ligament in his right knee.
Spain manager José Antonio Camacho announced soon after that Guardiola likely wouldn't be able to travel to Japan and South Korea and in the end, he was right. Guardiola never made it to that tournament either.
For a while, talk that Ribéry would miss the World Cup was everywhere.
Back at the hotel, Julien read through the coverage.
He had a feeling Ribéry's injury might be worse than anyone was letting on.
Giroud and Varane came by Julien's room as well, and the three of them sat looking over the reports, their faces were heavy.
"I hope Franck can recover fast. He can't miss the World Cup—not this one," Varane said first.
Giroud nodded slowly. "Without him, our attack takes a real hit."
Julien was silent for a moment before he finally spoke. "Let's wait for more news. Hopefully it's good."
But things didn't get better.
That night, Deschamps told the squad that Ribéry had gone back to Paris for tests and treatment, and that for now his condition wasn't too bad—he'd continue his recovery with the help of the federation's medical staff.
Ribéry wouldn't be playing in the remaining friendlies.
He might end up flying straight to Brazil to rejoin the squad there.
Once it had been laid out like that, there wasn't much more for the players to say. Injury is every athlete's greatest enemy.
The night of June 1st.
Once again at the Stade de Nice, France played Paraguay to a 1–1 draw.
For this match, Deschamps rotated the lineup heavily—Julien and the other core starters stayed on the bench.
Even so, most of the media's attention was still fixed on Ribéry.
Facing reporters, Deschamps said, "Our goal is for Ribéry to be fully recovered and ready to play in the World Cup before the final friendly."
When asked whether Ribéry might end up missing Brazil altogether, Deschamps couldn't give a straight answer.
"I can't answer that right now," he said. "We're doing everything we can to get him back on the pitch. He's confident too. And if it really turns out he can't make it in time, we still have time to find a solution."
The reporters understood, of course, that this meant Ribéry's odds of making the World Cup were sitting right around fifty-fifty.
Over the past season at Bayern, Ribéry had been repeatedly plagued by back trouble, which had sharply limited his appearances in the Bundesliga.
French Football Federation president Noël Le Graët, speaking to reporters after the match, said that just the previous week, Ribéry's frustration with the injury had boiled over—there were times he could barely stand up from the pain.
Still, Le Graët added, "He's anxious about the back injury because he can still feel real pain from it. But the test results show it isn't serious. We can say with confidence that he'll be back in training next week."
Le Graët's words offered French fans some measure of reassurance.
And yet, in the buildup to the friendly against Jamaica, Ribéry still hadn't trained with the squad even once.
Inside the camp, speculation about his injury was starting to curdle into real concern.
Finally, at training on June 6th, a new face showed up: Cabella.
Rémy Cabella, of Montpellier, had just come off a standout season with 41 appearances, 14 goals for his club, both career highs in a single campaign.
Cabella had won the Ligue 1 title with Montpellier back in 2012, but as far as the national team was concerned, he was still very much a rookie.
This was his first time ever making the senior squad list.
And what Cabella's arrival meant—everyone understood immediately.
Sure enough, before the session began, Deschamps said simply, "Franck's back injury isn't going to heal in time. Let's get to training."
Hearing that, Julien let out a sigh.
Without Ribéry, France's attacking threat would drop a tier.
Right now, there was no one who could truly replace him.
Julien couldn't help thinking of Mbappé—if only Mbappé were three years older, he might have had a shot.
It was such a shame.
That night, the French federation made it official on their website: due to a worsening back injury, Ribéry was confirmed out of the Brazil World Cup. His spot on the squad would go to Montpellier midfielder Cabella.
It had to be said, this year had been nothing but misfortune for Ribéry. First, he lost out to Ronaldo in the race for the Ballon d'Or.
Then his club, Bayern, was knocked out of the Champions League by Real Madrid in brutal fashion.
And now, Ribéry was being forced to say goodbye to Brazil just as the World Cup was about to begin.
Before Deschamps had announced the final 23-man squad, Ribéry had already been fighting the back injury and yet he'd still made the list.
Deschamps had held out hope for a miracle, but Ribéry's injury never came around.
A statement on the federation's website read:
"Test results from May 30th showed the injury healing well—well enough, it seemed, that he might even be able to play in the friendly against Jamaica. The coaching staff added a modest amount of individual training as a result.
But shortly after, his condition rapidly worsened. Following today's examination, it has been confirmed that he will not be able to participate in the World Cup."
After the federation announced the news, Ribéry gave an interview to the national team's official website.
"Having to leave the French squad now, unable to play in the World Cup—it feels like a kind of death of the soul," Ribéry said.
"I'd been hoping all along to play against Jamaica this Sunday. But even a light training session was enough to aggravate the injury in my back.
After the MRI, the team doctors confirmed that the pain would keep me from training or playing normally."
Ribéry went on, "I'm leaving my national teammates with a heavy heart. But I know they'll give everything they have for Les Bleus, and I believe they can achieve something great at this tournament. I'll be right there supporting them."
Fans who saw the news were stunned.
It meant they'd never get to see Ribéry perform on a World Cup stage again. The veteran who was now 31, had said in an interview back on May 21st: "This will be my last World Cup. We have to fight to win that trophy."
The news became the biggest story in France.
The entire country was talking about it.
With Ribéry gone, all hope now rested on one man: Julien De Rocca.
Everyone was hoping he could carry the team alone and pull off a miracle.
Two days later, back at the Stade de France in Paris for the last friendly, the French squad looked like they had a cheat code turned on—they tore Jamaica apart on home soil.
The final score: 9–0.
In that match, Julien scored four goals and added two assists, running through Jamaica's defence as if no one were even there.
His performance sent the confidence of the fans in the stands soaring.
"We've still got Julien!"
The chant rose up and swept through the Stade de France.
Plenty of fans had already booked their flights to Brazil, eager to see whether this reborn French team could really pull off something extraordinary.
The next day, the entire French squad set aside the euphoria of the night before's rout. They were headed to that fervent land, to prepare for the most important match of all, one week away—the World Cup.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Gracias, Leo.
Vamos, Leo.
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