Zurich in January was grey and very cold, which suited Julien perfectly.
He had played in front of eighty thousand people without once feeling nervous. A hotel mirror and a bow tie, it turned out, were a different matter.
"Hold still," Pauline said.
"I am holding still."
"You're breathing at it."
"I'm required to breathe. It's one of the few things I insist on."
She stepped back, studied her work, and tugged one end of the tie half a centimetre to the left. Then she nodded, satisfied, and gave his lapel a small pat, the way one would settle a horse.
"There. Now you look like a man who's never been kicked in his life."
"That's not what the ankle says."
"The ankle isn't in the photographs."
"The ankle feels very strongly that it should be consulted."
Pauline laughed and swatted his arm.
The ankle, as it happened, had been fine for days. It still complained a little on stairs, and Zurich seemed to have been built entirely out of stairs, but a fortnight of ice and Klopp's physios had turned a swelling into something he mostly forgot about until he was reminded.
His mother Isabella appeared in the doorway of the suite in her best dress, holding her handbag in both hands as though someone might try to take it from her.
"Have you eaten?"
It was the fifth time she had asked that morning. It was not yet ten.
"Yes, Maman."
"What did you eat?"
"Bread. An egg."
"One egg?"
"Two eggs, Maman. I counted them myself, out loud, so there'd be no confusion."
She looked at him with deep suspicion, as though the joke were itself evidence of something, then turned the same look on Pauline, who gave a tiny shake of the head—don't ask me, I only live with him.
Isabella sighed, adjusted his collar for no reason at all, muttered something about how he'd been exactly this impossible as a child too, and went off to find his father.
Julien's phone buzzed on the desk. He glanced at it.
The group chat had been going since seven.
Pogba had sent a voice note that ran four minutes, most of it laughter with the occasional word surfacing out of it like a fish coming up for air.
Suárez had sent a photo of himself in a tuxedo, captioned this is what the trophy looks like when I win it, followed by seven skull emojis. Someone—Sterling, probably had replied with a picture of a trophy about four centimetres tall.
Underneath that were two messages sent to him.
The first was from Klopp.
Proper tie, please. And training at ten tomorrow, I don't care what you win tonight. The trophy is not a medical certificate. A winking face.
The second was from Gerrard.
Don't trip on the stairs. We're all waiting on you and the trophy both. Don't you dare come back without it.
Julien read them both, smiled, and put the phone away.
"Ready?" Pauline asked.
He looked at the mirror one more time
"No," he said. "But let's go anyway."
The red carpet outside the hall was a long, brightly lit tunnel of noise.
Photographers called his name from both sides, in every language he knew and several he didn't. A wall of microphones appeared at his elbow and tracked him down the barrier like gulls following a boat out of harbour.
"Julien! How are you feeling?"
"Fine."
"Nervous?"
"A little."
"Do you think you've won it?"
"I think I'll find out soon enough."
A Spanish reporter leaned over the barrier. "Ronaldo finished the year in extraordinary form. Does that worry you tonight?"
Julien paused, giving it a moment's real thought.
"He's brilliant," he said. "He's always brilliant. That's rather the problem with him, isn't it?"
The reporter chuckled and scribbled it down. It would be a headline within the hour, though Julien had meant it as nothing more than the truth.
Inside, the lobby was warm and crowded and smelled faintly of good wood and better perfume.
Football's old guard stood around in loose clusters, shaking hands and very carefully not looking at each other's medals. Somewhere nearby, somebody was telling a story about a World Cup final, and a ring of listeners laughed at moments.
Julien was halfway across the room when he felt someone at his shoulder.
Lionel Messi.
He was smaller than he looked on television, which people always said and which was always true. He wore a dark suit, a plain tie, and a slightly wary expression.
"Julien."
"Lionel."
They shook hands. The last time they'd stood this close there had been a World Cup final between them. Julien had walked away from that night with a medal.
"Congratulations on your season," Messi said, in careful English. "It has been very—complete."
"Thank you. Yours as well."
Messi gave a small nod. Then, after a moment, as though he had been deciding whether to say it, he added: "I watched both matches against Madrid."
"Oh?"
"As a Barcelona player, I am not supposed to say this." He paused, and the corner of his mouth moved a fraction. "But thank you."
Julien blinked, then laughed, caught off guard. "I'll tell the lads you said so."
"Please don't," Messi said gravely.
He gave a short, courteous bow and moved off into the crowd, and Julien found that some of the knot in his stomach had loosened.
It tightened straight back up about thirty seconds later.
Cristiano Ronaldo had just come through the main doors.
He wore a black tuxedo and he walked as he always did, shoulders square, chin level, a man who knew every camera in the building was somewhere near him.
Ronaldo gave a single, short nod.
Julien nodded back, and that was the whole conversation.
The hall was enormous, softly lit, and so quiet that Julien could hear his own pulse.
They sat him in the third row, between Pauline and his mother, with his father at the end. Ronaldo was two rows ahead and slightly to the left. Messi sat across the aisle. Julien could see the back of Ronaldo's head, the line of his hair, his shoulders.
The ceremony opened with a film.
The ceremony began with a film.
The year, compressed into six minutes. A montage of the best of 2014, a quick cut of goals and trophies and shirts held high up, set to something with a lot of strings.
France, lifting the World Cup. A younger-looking Julien, mid-celebration, his face red and screaming at the sky. Liverpool lifting their league trophy. Messi's free kick against a team Julien couldn't remember.
Ronaldo's hat-trick, his flat, cold stare into the camera, the six-goals-in-six run that had half of Europe asking whether the race was still open.
Then, without any warning at all, the Bernabéu.
Julien on the halfway line. Julien past three defenders in four touches. The chip over Casillas.
A low rumble went round the hall—laughter mixed with something closer to disbelief.
Julien kept his eyes on the screen. He didn't look at Ronaldo. He could see, from where he sat, Ronaldo's right hand on his knee. It had tightened for a moment then it relaxed again, and Ronaldo applauded along with everyone else, perfectly polite, perfectly composed.
Pauline squeezed Julien's hand in the dark. He squeezed back.
Pauline's hand found his in the dark and squeezed. He squeezed back.
The film ended; the lights came up.
Thierry Henry who had once, a long time ago, been the best player alive walked to the lectern with a cream envelope in hand.
He thanked the sponsors. He thanked the jury. He made a small joke about how nobody in the room ever remembered the speeches, only the trophy.
Then he cleared his throat.
"The final three."
The room went still.
"As always, I'll start at the bottom. In third place..."
Julien's heart gave one small thump.
"...Lionel Messi."
Applause rolled through the hall. Messi, across the aisle, stood, buttoned his jacket, and nodded graciously to the room. He shook hands with the men on both side of him, calmly and warmly, and sat down again.
It was the first time in nearly a decade that he had been listed third, and the first thing Julien noticed was that his face did not change at all.
"In second place..."
The hush deepened. Julien found himself looking at the back of Ronaldo's head again.
"...Cristiano Ronaldo."
Ronaldo rose slowly, buttoned his jacket, and turned to face the room with a short, controlled smile. He raised a hand to the crowd and inclined his head.
Then the room went quiet in a different way.
Henry lifted the final envelope.
Nobody wins anything in November, Julien had told Pauline once. The year isn't finished.
It was January now.
The year was finished.
"And the winner of the 2014 Ballon d'Or..."
Pauline's hand closed around his so hard his fingers went numb.
Henry opened the envelope. He looked at the card. He looked up, smiled, and held the pause for a second longer.
"...Julien De Rocca."
A thundering round of applause hit him, arriving from every direction at once, so sudden that for a moment Julien couldn't place where he was.
The whole hall was on its feet. Beside him his mother made a small, strangled sound and put both hands over her mouth. His father's hand landed on his shoulder.
Pauline kissed his cheek.
"Go," she said into his ear. "Go, go, go."
He stood and stepped into the aisle. The applause rolled on, cameras were flashing from every angle, and somewhere in the left block a stranger in a Liverpool scarf was shouting his name.
He had to pass the second row on his way to the stage.
Ronaldo was standing. He'd got to his feet in the middle of the ovation, and was simply waiting there. Julien slowed as the two of them stood a metre apart, in the single most photographed room in the world, and for a second neither one of them moved.
Then Ronaldo put his hand out.
Julien took it firmly.
"I told you," Ronaldo said. "It will not be like this next time."
Julien looked him in the eye.
"I'm counting on it."
Something moved at the corner of Ronaldo's mouth. Then he let go of the hand, stepped back, and began to applaud, loudly and with complete sincerity.
Julien climbed the stairs.
The trophy was heavier than it looked. That was the first thing he noticed, the moment Henry placed it in his hands. It was gold, gleaming, impossible to mistake for anything else.
The applause died down in slow waves. He stood at the lectern. A thousand faces looked up at him, and several million more were watching on a screen somewhere, and he felt the familiar calm settle over him the way it did in the last five minutes of a tight match.
"Thank you," he said.
"I was told I'd have two minutes. I suspect Jürgen Klopp has a stopwatch on him somewhere in this building."
Laughter resounded through the hall.
"I'm not very good at speeches. I'll try to be quick about it."
He looked down at the trophy for a moment, then back up.
"First—my family. My mother, who has asked me five separate times today whether I've eaten. I have, Maman. And my father, who hasn't said one word all evening, which is exactly how I know he's proud."
In the third row his mother was crying now, dabbing at her eyes with the back of one hand while trying to wave at him with the other.
"And Pauline. Who is here. And who has put up with a great deal more than this evening."
He found her in the crowd. She was mouthing something at him that looked very much like get on with it.
"To everyone at Liverpool—the fans, who sing louder than any ground I've ever walked into. The staff. The coaches. Jürgen." He paused. "And Monsieur Chataigner, back in Bastia, who took a chance on a boy nobody else wanted and coach Faruk who believed him and me.
And the lads. Paul. N'Golo. Luis. Philippe. Raheem. Petr. All of them. People always say a striker scores the goals. But every goal I have scored, somebody else did half the work, and most of them never get their name in the headline.
"And Steven."
He felt his throat tighten slightly.
"Steven has been captain of that club for longer than I've been a professional footballer. He taught me what the badge actually means, as opposed to what it says on the shirt. And he texted me this morning to tell me not to trip on the stairs." He glanced down at the steps he'd just climbed. "I'm happy to report that, so far, I haven't. There's still the way down, though."
A warm wave of laughter went through the room. In the second row, Ronaldo was smiling and shaking his head.
"Finally—two men in this room."
He looked straight at them. Across the aisle, Messi sat very still, watching. Two rows from the front, Ronaldo had stopped smiling and was watching him with total attention.
"Lionel. Cristiano. For ten years, neither of you won this award. You made it the hardest thing in the sport to win, year after year, and I grew up watching you do it, and I've never once forgotten that, no matter how this evening went."
He paused. "Cristiano told me, in Madrid, that next time would not be like this. I believe him. I hope he's right. Honestly, it's the best thing that could happen to me."
The whole hall roared.
Ronaldo moved his head and laughed out loud. It was a rare, startled laugh.
Julien lifted the trophy slightly.
"Thank you. To Liverpool. And to France."
He stepped back from the lectern, and the roar followed him all the way down the stairs.
Backstage, in the corridor behind the stage, the noise dropped away into a low rumble, like a storm heard through a wall.
Julien stood still for a moment with the trophy held in both hands.
Someone had already pinned a small gold badge to his lapel. Someone else pressed a bottle of water into his free hand. A technician in black was saying something about photographs, and a man in a headset was saying something else about the press room, and none of it quite reached him yet.
He looked down at the trophy.
Ballon d'Or 2014.
His own name would be engraved somewhere on it, he supposed, eventually, once there was time to look.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
Then again. Then a long, continuous shudder ran, as if forty people had decided, all at the same moment, that now was the time to say something.
He took it out.
The group chat had completely exploded.
Pogba, in capitals, three messages that were mostly just his name repeated with increasing numbers of exclamation marks.
Suárez, somehow in three different languages across three consecutive texts. Coutinho, Sterling, Robertson—a flood of flags and trophy emojis and the word KING rendered in a dozen different fonts.
At the very top was a message from Gerrard, sent a minute earlier.
You didn't trip. Proud of you, son.
Julien read it. Then he put the phone away, picked the trophy back up properly, and walked on toward the light at the end of the corridor.
________________________________________________________
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