Julien beat the goalkeeper and slotted the ball into the empty net.
The moment travelled through the broadcast to every corner of the world.
Countless eyes turned to their screens.
Some excited, some stunned, some sighing.
But in France, at least—there was only celebration!
Alphonse's roar nearly tore the microphone apart. "Julien! A hat-trick!
He's completed a hat-trick—in the World Cup final!
My God!
Who can possibly stop Julien from scoring now?!
Three-nil! We are three-nil up on Argentina!
I can say it outright now—the World Cup trophy belongs to France! It already belongs to us!
Three goals clear!
In a match of this magnitude—the World Cup final—three goals clear!
Name me a final that's ever been overturned from three-nil down!
Tell me!
France is safe! We are completely, utterly safe!"
Then, naturally, Alphonse turned back to Julien. "Julien! My God! This twenty-year-old boy—his performance has been beyond compare, beyond reproach!
Not only has he scored twice in the first half and completed a hat-trick in the second, carrying the hopes of the entire French squad on his shoulders in a World Cup final—he's also broken the record for the youngest goal scorer in World Cup final history!
A hat-trick in the World Cup final!
Julien now stands as only the second man ever to do it, alongside Geoff Hurst in 1966!
Twenty years old, and he's rewritten history twice in a single match!
The clock reads fifty-two minutes. There's still roughly forty minutes left in this game!
Forty minutes!
With Julien in this kind of form, will there be a fourth goal?
We can absolutely hope for it!
Hope that he rewrites history once more—that he becomes the first player ever to score four goals in a single World Cup final!"
As he spoke, Alphonse's voice climbed higher and higher. "I'll say it plainly—every individual award left to hand out this year, the Ballon d'Or, the World Cup Best Player, the Golden Boot—he will sweep every single one of them!
No one can stand against him. No one can dim his light!
He has written his own legend in a single final. With three goals, he has told the entire world who truly rules this game!"
Alphonse's voice rode the deafening roar of the Maracanã into every French living room.
He shouted. He celebrated.
And he carried every French fan with him—announcing, in that voice, that the suspense of this final was already, completely over.
"Look at Julien! Look at this boy! He is the pride of France, the legend of this World Cup!" Alphonse was still wild with emotion, but there was a catch in his voice now. "We waited for this day. We waited so, so long. And today, Julien has brought us within one step of the dream!
Hold on, France!
In half an hour, we will be world champions!"
On the pitch, after Julien's wild celebration, play resumed.
Three goals down did not mean Argentina had given up. This was their last stand.
The players pushed high up the pitch, exactly as Sabella had instructed, straining to seize any last thread of a comeback.
Messi drifted freely across the front, desperate to claw back the deficit for his team, cutting more and more into pockets of space, running harder, organizing attack after attack.
France, meanwhile, kept its shape and waited to counter.
Word of what was unfolding at the Maracanã spread through every street and alley of Brazil.
In a bar in Rio de Janeiro, the television played the final live to a room packed with Brazilian fans.
They watched Argentina trailing three-nil, and doubled over laughing.
"Ha! Look at Argentina! Three-nil! And they thought they could hang with France—what a joke!"
"So arrogant before the match, and now De Rocca's knocked them senseless! Just like us—another one of France's victims!"
A fan nearby laughed along, slapping the table. "Exactly! Higuaín skying that one-on-one—hilarious! And Messi's useless too, Kanté's had him shut down all match. Argentina can't do a thing!"
Someone even mimicked the crestfallen look of an Argentine fan, and the whole bar roared with laughter.
Jeers and taunts rippled through the room, and not one of them remembered that their own national team had been washed out of this same tournament by France, by an equally lopsided score.
Right now, all they wanted was to use Argentina's collapse to vent their own frustration at being knocked out—to find some scrap of comfort in mockery.
If one lost to the strongest team in the world, and somehow, a heavy defeat doesn't sting quite so much.
55th minute.
Argentina pushed forward down the flank. Lavezzi fought off Evra's marking with everything he had and lofted a cross into the box.
Higuaín finally saw his chance.
He surged forward, straining for the header—but before he could even leave the ground, French defender Varane rose first, using his positioning advantage to beat him to it.
Varane powered the ball clear, high out of the box.
Higuaín froze where he stood, watching Varane's back, his face was full of helplessness.
He'd been shadowed by Varane all match—on the ground, in the air, nothing. Completely shut down.
He did not even had a single chance to threaten the French goal.
He was starting to lose his composure.
Sigh…
A wave of despair rolled through the Argentine section of the stands.
Watching their team play like this, they truly couldn't see any hope of a turnaround.
Messi watched the ball get cleared.
His face was blank.
Whether it was sweat or something else, his eyes looked wet.
He'd run himself into the ground, linked play everywhere he could—and still couldn't crack open France's suffocating defence.
Attack after attack came to nothing.
The three-goal deficit sat on the team like a mountain, crushing the air out of everyone.
Some fans watching the broadcast felt for Messi. Others just laughed at him for looking close to tears.
Deschamps, watching from the sideline, felt nothing but confidence.
France's back line was elite—world-class. His only worry all tournament had been a lack of scoring punch. But with Julien on the pitch?
That problem had solved itself.
Let the opponent score first? Fine—just be ready to get hit on the counter.
Won't score first? Doesn't matter—still hit them on the counter.
Deschamps knew it better than anyone: attack wins you the league; defence wins you the cup.
The World Cup was never about who attacked better.
It was about who defended better.
Not far away, Sabella's face had grown grimmer by the minute. He paced back and forth.
Time was slipping away, second by second, and his team's attack showed no sign of life. Keep going like this, and any hope of a comeback would vanish completely.
Finally, in the 58th minute, Sabella couldn't wait any longer.
He made his boldest substitution of the match—his last gamble, Argentina's last hope.
Sabella signalled from the touchline for a change.
At the next stoppage—Lavezzi and Enzo Pérez came off.
On came Fernando Gago and Agüero.
Gago's midfield organization was sharper—better equipped to link Messi with the front line, to bring rhythm back to Argentina's attack. Sabella needed his passing.
Agüero brought a sharp instinct in the box and a finisher's touch—Sabella was hoping he could make up for Higuaín's quiet afternoon and finally break the deadlock.
Paired with Higuaín up top, running as a front two. This was Sabella's call.
A change of shape.
Lavezzi and Enzo Pérez didn't linger. They jogged off the pitch quickly, heads down, faces full of disappointment. They had given everything, and it still hadn't been enough to turn the tide.
Fernando Gago and Agüero jogged on at speed.
Sabella stood at the touchline. This was his final adjustment—Argentina's final chance.
He just wanted one more shot at it. Even with the odds this thin, he wasn't ready to give up.
Once Gago and Agüero were on, Manchester City's lead striker Agüero pushed to the very front, forming a strike partnership with Higuaín, cutting constantly through the space in front of France's box, piling pressure on the back line.
Gago, meanwhile, threw himself into every challenge without a second thought for his own safety.
Every ball, he fought for. Every tackle, he gave everything he had.
Alphonse gave the French audience a quick introduction to Gago—most French fans already knew Agüero well, but Gago was less familiar to them.
"...Not many remember now just how dazzling this midfielder's start once was—this man throwing himself into every tackle out there.
Back in 2007, at just twenty years old, Gago signed for Real Madrid for twenty million euros. With his silky touch and calm command of midfield, fans called him the second Redondo.
Everyone thought he'd become the next great midfield maestro of the game.
But fate had other plans—cruel ones. The years that followed were a struggle: injuries, inconsistency, and in the end, he returned to where his career began—Boca Juniors—for a fraction of that price, just one million euros.
Coming home to his boyhood club was his redemption.
And now, wearing Argentina's colours, standing on the biggest stage in football, all he wants is to give everything he has—to turn this match around, to give his country one last shred of hope..."
Argentine fans watched Gago with a faint flicker of something in their chests.
Maybe—just maybe—he really could change things.
On the pitch, Gago tore back and forth across midfield, throwing himself at every French pass, every link-up ball, fighting for every scrap.
Nothing left of the elegant maestro he'd once been billed as—just a relentless, workmanlike midfield enforcer now.
Time changes so much.
Once more—Pogba picked up the ball in midfield, looking to slip a short pass to Kanté. Gago charged in to close him down.
Pogba dropped a shoulder—and slipped past him in an instant.
Gago, carrying too much momentum, lost his footing and went down hard, his knee slammed into the turf.
He scrambled straight back up, ignoring the pain.
And kept chasing. But by then, Pogba had already released the ball.
Gago's relentlessness spread through the Argentine side—everyone was throwing themselves into the fight now.
But fate had one more blow in store, and it came without warning.
In the 64th minute, Argentina pushed forward down the flank. Evra intercepted the ball, and Gago, trying to cut off Evra's advance, threw himself forward without hesitation. The two collided at full speed on the touchline, their bodies were crashing together.
Evra hit the ground, rubbed his knee, and was quickly back on his feet.
But Gago stayed down, both hands clamped around his ankle, his face was twisted in pain.
He tried to get up. But it hurt too much.
The referee immediately waved the medical team onto the pitch.
Argentina's team doctor rushed on with the medical bag, hurrying anxiously to Gago's side, crouching down, carefully examining the ankle.
The referee stepped in, urging the doctor to finish quickly so as not to hold up the match.
The doctor pressed gently on Gago's ankle. Gago winced hard, teeth clenched, but didn't make a sound.
After the examination, the doctor's expression turned grave.
He shook his head at Sabella—signalling that Gago's injury looked serious, that he likely couldn't continue.
Then, the doctor pulled a pain-relief spray from the medical bag and sprayed it quickly over Gago's ankle, trying to numb the pain for now.
Only then did he help Gago up and guide him toward the sideline for further treatment.
Play continued on the pitch.
On the sideline, Gago shoved the doctor's hands away, his voice was urgent. "Danny! Let me back on! I can still play! I can still help the team!"
Danny was Argentina's team doctor.
Gago was desperate now. He knew—better than anyone—that this was Argentina's last chance, and the closest he himself had ever come to a World Cup dream. He didn't want to leave the pitch like this, with regret.
He wanted to stay out there. To fight for his country. Even if it was only for one more minute.
The doctor kept spraying his ankle with the pain reliever.
Gago kept gesturing to the referee, insisting he could go back on.
The referee waved him on and signalled him back onto the pitch.
Gago went straight back on. There was still some discomfort, but he didn't care anymore.
The moment he was back, he threw himself right back into the fight.
That sight brought tears to the eyes of the Argentine fans in the stands.
Julien noticed Gago's condition too, and gave a small shake of his head. Even as an opponent, he deserved respect.
Argentina's attacking surge—kept burning.
The players ran harder and harder, closing down France the instant they had the ball.
France, for their part, didn't try to hold possession much. They ceded the ball, let Argentina come forward. Pogba and Julien both kept their eyes fixed on the same thing: the space behind Argentina's back line.
That was Argentina's weakest link.
The match ticked on, minute by minute.
A sense of despair began to settle over every Argentine player on the pitch—and over every Argentine fan in the stands.
Gago was fighting.
Every Argentine player was fighting. But the attack had nothing left to give.
The hope in their eyes dimmed, little by little.
68th minute.
France won the ball back in their own half. Pogba collected it—and sent a long ball forward.
Once again, it split Argentina's back line wide open.
Argentina, committed to their all-out attack, had pushed their defence far up the pitch, leaving a gaping hole behind them—and once again, France seized on it.
There was no way around it. This was a choice between two evils.
Push up: risk conceding even faster—but also a chance to score.
Don't push up: face a slow death.
Every eye in the stadium turned to follow the ball's flight.
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