The moment Pogba released the ball.
Giroud sensed it instantly and surged forward. His top speed wasn't much to speak of, but his hold-up play was more than strong enough to compensate.
He took Pogba's long ball cleanly, back to goal.
He was just outside the box when Garay closed in, throwing everything he had into blocking him, pressing tight against his back.
On the other side, Griezmann was already making his run, arm thrown forward, calling for the ball.
Giroud shaped as if to flick it back to him with his heel.
At the same moment, Griezmann's forward run pulled the Argentine back line apart, stretching the gaps between the defenders.
That was all it took. Garay bought the fake, and Giroud reacted in an instant.
A light touch to the side, a spin on the follow-through—he didn't even look at the goal—and his foot was already swinging through the shot.
Whump!
The ball tore a wild, whipping arc through the air, spinning fast, it dragged straight for goal!
Romero threw himself into the save, stretching everything he had—his fingertips just grazed the ball but it wasn't enough to bend its path.
Snap!
The ball tore into the net for the fourth time!
GOAL!
4–0!
France pulled the lead out even further!
Giroud was already sprinting for the touchline, leaping high, throwing a furious punch into the air.
He came down screaming, roaring at the top of his lungs.
His face was showing pure elation—this was his first goal in a World Cup final, the goal that mattered for France, the one that killed the match.
He was new to the World Cup stage, but he was no kid. He was a veteran.
Years of grinding, of holding on—all of it caught fire in this one moment.
That goal landed like a thunderclap, shattering whatever hope Argentina had left.
The Argentine players on the pitch froze where they stood.
Gago stood with his hands on his hips, jaw tight, unwilling to accept it but the scoreline left him nothing to argue with.
Mascherano shook his head over and over, sighing deep, muttering something under his breath.
Agüero just stood there, his eyes had turned empty.
No one went to protest. They all knew there was nothing to protest—the goal was beyond dispute.
The broadcast camera caught every second of it.
France's celebration.
Argentina's many faces of grief.
Then the camera found Messi—the heart of the Argentine side.
He stood in midfield without moving, just standing there, his eyes were already wet.
His gaze was hollow, gone somewhere past hope.
Whatever fight he'd had was gone now, as if every ounce of strength had drained out of him in that instant—the team's string of collapses, and now this goal, the one that finished it.
It had completely broken him.
Up in the stands, the Argentine fans let out a wail of despair.
Fans buried their faces in their hands, crying silently.
On the touchline, Sabella's face had gone white as paper.
His mouth opened, but no words came. At 4–0, it already felt written—Argentina's World Cup dream had fallen into an abyss with no way out.
As for the French players—they were still going wild!
Julien was shaking Giroud by the shoulders, shouting into his ear: "Oliver, mate! That's it! You finally scored!"
Pogba, Griezmann, Kanté, Varane—they were all grabbing each other, whooping.
This bunch of kids.
They were about to stand on top of the world!
"4–0…"
Argentina's commentator Diego, his voice was trembling with a rasp of despair creeping into it: "I don't want to accept this. I really don't want to accept this.
But I have to say it—it's going to be so hard for us to win this now. So hard…"
He paused for a few seconds, choking back the lump in his throat—you could hear him fighting the tears in his voice. "I'm sorry, my fellow countrymen. I want to cry right now.
My heart, in this moment, aches the same way every Argentine heart aches."
The camera swept across the shattered Argentine players, across Messi with his red eyes, and Diego went on, "Do you remember?
This was our Pampas eagle's first trip to a World Cup final since Italy 1990.
After we beat the Netherlands, every Argentine went mad with joy.
Blue and white flags everywhere, on every street, every corner.
Everyone was cheering, everyone was hoping—that we could lift that trophy again, that we could stand on top of the world again."
"We waited so long for this, waited and waited. From Maradona to Messi, we kept hoping, kept following. We thought, this time, we'd finally get there. We thought the Pampas eagle would spread its wings and fly again."
Diego's voice cracked further, the tears finally started breaking through. "But today, on this very pitch, in the place where the dream was supposed to come true, our eagle has fallen.
We gave everything we had, and it still wasn't enough to hold off defeat.
The whole of Argentina is weeping right now."
He looked at Messi's hollow, despairing eyes on the screen, looked at Gago's frame, and said again, "I saw Messi's tears. I saw Gago give everything he had.
I saw every single player's refusal to let go. They never gave up. They left nothing out there. But fate can be cruel like that. 4–0—it's a knife, and it's cutting into the heart of every Argentine.
We thought this was supposed to be Messi's World Cup, our Argentina's World Cup. But in the end, the miracle never came."
Diego's voice sank lower and lower, but something stubborn still ran through it. "The Pampas eagle may have fallen, but our faith hasn't broken.
Today's loss is pain. It's regret.
But it isn't the end. We'll carry this pain with us, and we'll keep waiting—waiting for the eagle to fly again, waiting for the day our dream finally comes true…"
In front of televisions everywhere, countless Argentine fans wept along with him.
At the big screens in the streets, people cried. In the bars, people lifted their glasses and drank their tears down with the drink.
Every Argentine ached for a team that had given everything and still lost, and offered up a silent comfort to their fallen Pampas eagle.
They would have to keep waiting for their own moment to come.
But the match wasn't over yet.
Twenty minutes left, 4–0.
At that scoreline, there was almost nothing left in doubt.
But as long as even the faintest chance remained, no one was going to give up!
No one was going to surrender in a match like this!
When play resumed, the 4–0 scoreline had crushed any last shred of wishful thinking Argentina had left—and pushed them into an all-or-nothing assault instead, the kind where you burn the boats behind you and leave yourself nowhere to retreat.
They had stopped caring about tactical discipline, stopped caring about the holes they were leaving at the back.
Everyone pushed forward, every thought was bent on attack.
They just wanted one goal—one goal to save some scrap of face, even if that scrap of face, against a scoreline like this, would mean almost nothing.
But the urgency to score had thrown their whole rhythm into chaos.
Midfield fell apart completely.
The short passing that had once held them together gave way to hurried long balls that kept coming back empty.
Their defence was a formality at best—the back line was pushed so far up it left a gaping hole behind them, and France's counterattack had all the room it needed to exploit it.
Mascherano ran himself into the ground alone, and it still wasn't enough to plug the gap in midfield.
The harder Argentina attacked, the more exposed their defence became.
With the pressure to pad the score gone, Pogba let his talent loose in midfield, carving through the chaos in Argentina's ranks with two through balls in quick succession.
Each one dropped cleanly in behind Argentina's back line.
Every pass was placed exactly right, tearing straight through Argentina's ragged defence.
It was just a shame that neither chance was finished up front.
The reason neither chance was converted came down to numbers—France hadn't committed many bodies forward.
Argentina still had the legs to scramble back.
Deschamps was sticking to his defend-and-counter game plan. Even with a commanding lead, he wasn't about to throw men forward carelessly.
Up front, only Giroud stayed to occupy the defence.
Everyone else stayed compact through midfield and the back, locked in on defending.
By the 75th minute, Deschamps looked at the scoreline—so lopsided by now and made his substitutions.
With a lead like this, he decided to give more of his players a chance, let them have their moment on the World Cup final stage too.
Deschamps signalled to the bench for the changes.
Griezmann came off, Valbuena came on.
Evra came off, Digne came on in his place.
Both like-for-like swaps.
As Evra walked off, he slapped hands with Digne, murmuring a low reminder to hold his ground on the flank and not let his guard down.
Valbuena and Digne jogged onto the pitch. Both of them had a fire in their eyes.
For any player, the stage of a World Cup final was the kind of moment you never forgot for the rest of your life—just setting foot on it was an honour in itself.
Once they were on, Valbuena took over Griezmann's spot, cutting through the flank, while Digne held the left, the link between defence and attack.
The match ground on.
At 4–0, Argentina's defence had already become a formality.
Their attack was a mess, and their defence was running on fumes.
In the 81st minute, Argentina's attack broke down again—Gago tried a lofted pass through the middle, but Varane came out to head it away toward the flank, and Higuaín missed the ball again.
Right beside him, Agüero hadn't touched the ball in what felt like forever.
The ball moved quickly out to Digne on the left.
Digne, on as a substitute, was fully into his pace now.
He took the ball, accelerated, and drove down the left with pace—nobody could get near him.
Argentina's flank defence might as well not have existed.
Zabaleta, who was supposed to be covering that side, had pushed up too far to get back in time.
Digne, with his fast fresh speed and slick footwork, kept driving through.
Whoosh!
Up in the stands, the French fans roared again, cheering Digne on for the run.
At the same moment, Julien had already burst forward to support the attack.
Through the middle, Giroud and the substitute Valbuena were both charging forward at full tilt.
This was a strong chance!
Argentina only had three men back—it was 4-on-3, and they were completely outnumbered.
Digne drove to the edge of the box on the left, saw Julien in position, and slid a pass across.
The ball arrived at Julien's feet with just the right weight behind it.
The instant Julien took the ball, he turned, tapped it lightly to the side, and shook off Mascherano, who'd been chasing him down—then drove straight into the box.
He was face to face with Argentina's centre back Garay.
To his right, Giroud and Valbuena were both wide open, but Julien didn't look for the pass.
A four-goal haul was right there in front of him!
He trusted himself more!
Garay threw himself forward to block, crouching low, doing everything he could to cut off Julien's shooting angle.
Julien didn't break his run and kept running through one stepover after another.
A fake with his left, his right foot following through, then a light touch with his left again—it threw Garay's balance off completely, and opened up a perfect shooting angle.
The instant Garay stumbled out of position, Julien fired with his left foot—a blazing shot to the near post!
Whump!
The ball screamed toward the near corner!
Argentina's keeper Romero dove with everything he had, throwing his whole body to the right—but he was too slow.
Mascherano, tracking back to try a sliding tackle, was a step too slow as well.
Snap!
The ball tore into the net, kicking up a spray of white.
GOAL!
5–0!
Julien had his four-goal haul!
And with it, any doubt left in the match was gone!
That goal didn't just push the score to 5–0—it announced, in no uncertain terms, that Argentina's hopes of a comeback had gone up in smoke.
Julien saw the ball hit the net and ran toward the stands, grinning.
Mascherano and Romero just dropped to the ground where they stood, gasping for breath, with no idea how to even face what had just happened.
BOOM!
BOOM BOOM!!
The Maracanã erupted!
The French fans were beyond themselves now, lost in it completely, past caring about anything else in the world.
The roar surged through the whole stadium like a volcano going off, shaking the stands with it, French flags lashing in a frenzy like a rolling sea.
Every French fan was on their feet, up on their toes, screaming and cheering with everything they had.
Letting it all out.
Julien was sprinting hard for the touchline, toward France's bench.
He threw his arms wide, his shirt snapping in the wind as he ran—this moment belonged to him!
It was a four-goal haul unlike anything ever seen in a World Cup final!
It was glory that belonged to France!
When he reached the touchline, the French players on the bench had already gone wild, mobbing him, wrapping him up in a group hug.
Deschamps hurried over too, joining the celebration.
Up in the stands, the French fans' cheers only grew louder!
"Julien! The King!"
"Vive la France!"
The whole Maracanã had become one great sea of French celebration.
At the same moment, France's commentator Alphonse let out dozens of straight "GOOOOOAL!!"s the second the ball went in.
Only then did he stop, draw a huge breath, and keep going: "Julien has his four-goal haul!
A four-goal haul!
The first man in the history of the sport to do it!
On the stage of a World Cup final—four goals in a single match, a complete haul—Julien has done it!
No one has ever managed that on a World Cup final stage before. He's made history. He's rewritten the legend!
If there's a king of football in this era, it might just be Julien!
This kid—in one final, with four goals—has told the entire world what top-tier talent looks like, what a legend looks like!
He's proven, with everything he's got, that he is the ruler of the game today, a king with no equal!"
Once Alphonse had caught his breath a little, he walked it back slightly, "Of course, Julien's still missing some major trophies. He's still missing a Champions League title, still missing a European Championship.
He's still missing the Ballon d'Or.
But—just look at this World Cup, look at what Julien and France have done. They were unstoppable in every bit of it!
The Champions League, the European Championship—I don't think those are far off now.
And the Ballon d'Or—that one, I'd say, is already decided!"
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