With the friendly against the Netherlands now behind them, the national team's obligations for this international break were officially over.
Of course, even without a match left on the horizon, the players weren't heading straight back to their clubs the next morning. There was still training to be done at Clairefontaine, preparations to sharpen with a World Cup sitting three months away.
The following day, the French sporting press trained its lens almost entirely on the previous night's performance—specifically on the second half, which had unravelled so completely that it became, almost overnight, the dominant story of the week.
L'Équipe offered no tactful cover at all.
"In the first half," the paper wrote, "France rode Julien's moment of brilliance and seamless combination play to seize control of the match, even building a two-goal lead that, for forty-five minutes, looked entirely comfortable.
But the second half belonged to a different team entirely. Passes went astray. The defensive line lost its shape. Midfield interceptions became an afterthought and the Dutch were gifted one counter-attacking opportunity after another, levelling twice before the final whistle blew. This cliff-edge collapse traces back to one thing: France are too young."
The report noted that the current squad's average age sat below twenty-four, making this arguably the youngest French national team in recent memory.
Raw talent, the paper argued in its next paragraph, could not paper over a lack of big-match experience and mental resilience; once a team fell into difficulty, the errors multiplied rather than corrected themselves.
"Deschamps has a generation of gifted players at his disposal," the piece continued, "and yet he has not yet taught them how to stay composed, how to hold their nerve when the match turns against them. That, more than any tactical wrinkle, is his most pressing challenge heading into the summer."
L'Équipe reserved particular attention, column after column of it, for Julien's role as the fulcrum of everything France had managed to build:
"In this match, France's entire creative threat ran through one man. The young captain's electric pace and delicate footwork carved through the Dutch defence repeatedly, producing one dangerous delivery into the box after another.
Those around him were another matter. Ribéry still seemingly lost somewhere in the shadow of his failed Ballon d'Or bid, struggled to find himself out on the pitch. Deschamps' new call-up Griezmann looked visibly inhibited in his debut minutes.
When Julien was absent from the picture, France lacked invention. They lacked the courage to play forward at pace. They lacked any clear means of breaking a deadlock. Even with him on the pitch, the attack leans far too heavily on his individual genius alone.
A single-threaded offensive approach cannot sustain a team through the long, grinding intensity of a World Cup campaign."
The piece continued, the tone growing only more sharp:
"In the second half, the Dutch shifted their entire shape and pressed higher up the pitch. Deschamps' substitutions failed to restore any of the rhythm France had built in the first half, and the changes that followed only scrambled the existing patterns further rather than easing the pressure bearing down on his side.
More fundamentally, since taking charge of this national team, Deschamps has committed himself fully to rebuilding around youth, promoting a wave of talented young players like Varane and Pogba into the heart of his side. Yet he has never quite found the formula to properly balance raw talent against consistent.
These young men have the ceiling to become world-class footballers. But talent alone has never won a single match in the history of this sport. Deschamps must give this generation real tactical grounding—teach them to settle themselves when a game turns hostile, to combine instinctively without needing to think it through first, to hold firm when the tide of a match shifts against them.
Only then can this young France side grow into a team that genuinely competes at the very top, rather than one that merely flashes brilliance in patches."
Even so, for all its sharpness, L'Équipe did not go so far as to completely condemn the squad it had just spent several hundred words dissecting.
The piece closed on a touch of tempered hope: "This France side remains, for all its flaws on display last night, the most exciting France side in years."
And with an eye already turning toward the summer ahead: "We all want to see the Ballon d'Or return to France. But that demands a far stronger showing at the World Cup than what we watched unfold last night."
Other outlets piled in from every conceivable angle, each chasing its own distinct headline to stand out from the pack.
One ran a piece accusing Van Gaal of having outsmarted Deschamps, laying a trap and watching it spring shut exactly on schedule.
Another declared that as long as Julien stayed fit and on the pitch, France belonged comfortably in football's first tier regardless of what happened around him.
The internet, predictably, frothed with takes of every flavour imaginable, threads and replies were multiplying through the morning into the afternoon.
None of it, of course, reached the French squad's training pitch back at Clairefontaine.
Any professional athlete learns quickly to live comfortably under that kind of spotlight—every small moment on the field can be plucked out of context, frozen, and debated by thousands of strangers who weren't there to feel the weight of the ball or the heat of the lights.
Off the pitch, though, Julien preferred to be invisible wherever he could manage it. That was simply how he liked to live his life between matches.
Despite the conclusion of their competitive fixtures for this window, Deschamps kept the squad at the Clairefontaine training centre just outside Paris, making the most of the uninterrupted stretch of days to work on shape, close the gaps, to grind away patiently at tactical cohesion.
Preparation for the World Cup. That was the only thing that mattered now.
Three months looked generous enough on paper. In practice, with club football demanding nearly all of it, the only remaining international window before the tournament itself was May.
Time was already short, and growing shorter by the day.
The press, for all its sharpened edges, hadn't been entirely wrong in its diagnosis.
This France side was young, gifted, and prone to exactly the kind of mistakes that came from gifted youth, in need of both competitive matches and long, unglamorous hours on the training ground to smooth the rough edges.
Griezmann, for instance, had relaxed as the match wore on after his senior debut, though watching from the touchline Julien had noticed the arc of it clearly enough.
Early in the match, Griezmann had been stiff through the shoulders, tentative on the ball, checking his options twice before committing to anything; by the closing stages, he'd found his own rhythm.
Everything had its own rhythm, its own season to arrive in. These weren't the sophisticated, long-established players Julien remembered from his previous life. They were still being shaped, week by week, match by match, into whatever they would eventually become.
Away from football, this rare spell gave Julien something far harder to come by than minutes on a pitch: time with his family.
In Paris, once each day's training finished and the kit bag was zipped shut, he shed the footballer the way other men shed a work uniform.
In casual clothes, with no schedule pressing on him and no agenda beyond the next few hours, he walked the city streets with his parents and his siblings, taking in a place he otherwise only ever passed through between flights and training camps, glimpsed mostly from the inside of a moving car.
Without football demanding every corner of his attention, he was simply someone's son again, someone's brother, ordinary and beloved in a way that had nothing to do with goals scored or matches won.
It was also, finally, time enough to be with Pauline.
Normally their schedules pulled in opposite directions, hers and his crossing was only in few stolen hours between commitments.
But with the national team's programme winding gently down and the training sessions settling into a calmer, more predictable pattern, Julien could slip away in the evenings and keep his long-overdue appointment with her.
He spent evenings, too, with teammates—dinners at a restaurant near the training base. Brotherhood out on the pitch begins long before kickoff in these kinds of evenings spent off it.
But Paris, for all its warmth, does not linger forever.
The afternoon of the thirteenth of March.
After the day's session had wound down, Deschamps gathered the squad together one final time on the edge of the training pitch. Tonight, the camp would officially break up. By morning, the players would begin scattering back to their respective clubs across Europe.
As the others drifted off toward the changing rooms, towels over shoulders, boots in hand, Deschamps laid a hand on Julien's shoulder and held him back a moment.
"Don't rush off. Walk with me a moment."
They sat together on a wooden bench at the edge of the training pitch, sunlight falling warm across their shoulders, edging out the last thin trace of the spring chill that still hung in the morning air.
"Camp's done," Deschamps said, looking out at the empty pitch rather than at Julien directly.
"Time to go back to Liverpool. And I hope you carry on the way you've been going—commanding your club at nineteen, being the single piece everything else runs through. That's not an easy thing to carry, even for players twice your age. And remember—if you can lead Liverpool to the Premier League title this season, you'll become one of the legends of that club, spoken about for as long as people talk about it at all."
He shook his head slowly. "A legend at nineteen. Extraordinary, when you actually sit and think about it."
Julien showed a small, modest smile. "Thank you, boss. I'll keep working at it. We haven't lifted anything yet, though—the Premier League is relentless all the way to May. Anything can happen between now and then."
Deschamps laughed. "Fair enough. Though not having a midweek in Europe to worry about certainly helps your lot as the season stretches on and the legs get heavier."
The light-heartedness in his voice faded by a degree.
"One thing I have to say to you seriously, before you go," Deschamps continued, turning now to look at him directly.
"In every session, every match between now and the summer—protect yourself. Don't get injured chasing something that isn't worth the risk. You know what's coming in June. This team needs you whole and sharp. Your pace, your creativity out there—they're not optional pieces for us. They're the foundation everything else is built on."
He paused, choosing his next words.
"Being young and passionate is a fine thing, a precious thing, even—don't let anyone talk you out of it. But don't let that same fire push you through things you shouldn't be pushing through.
Manage your body. Take care of yourself properly, the boring parts too, the recovery and the rest as much as the training. Do that, and you give yourself a long career stretching out ahead of you. A single brilliant season or two means nothing set against ten or twenty years of consistency at this level."
Julien straightened on the bench. "Understood, boss. I'll be careful."
Deschamps looked at him for a moment, something warm and quietly satisfied was moving across his face, before breaking into a wide grin that changed the whole shape of his face.
"Good. Now—the derby's coming up in a few days. Manchester United against Liverpool. I want you to go and put them firmly in their place."
"Easy enough," Julien said with a small, confident edge to his voice. "United are struggling right now, badly. Moyes hasn't found his answers all season, and their shape is a mess at both ends of the pitch. We play our own game, the way we know how, and we take it."
He wasn't being reckless in saying so.
Liverpool and United were working in entirely different worlds this season.
Liverpool were unified, galvanised, every man on that roster pulling toward the same single thing—a first Premier League title for the club in over two decades.
United, under Moyes, were unravelling thread by thread in full public view. Results, atmosphere, direction—none of it was working the way it was supposed to at a club of that size.
Julien didn't know exactly when the axe would finally fall on Moyes' tenure, but some certainty in him knew it would come before this season had run its course.
They talked a little longer in the fading afternoon light. Eventually Julien checked the time on his phone and rose from the bench.
"I should get moving."
Deschamps stood with him, resting a hand briefly against his back as they walked a few steps together.
"Go on, then. One more thing, before you disappear back to England—next time you're properly back in France, give me a call. We'll have dinner, just the two of us. Zidane's been asking about you, more than once now. Things keep him busy out in Madrid these days, otherwise he'd have reached out to you himself by now."
"Will do," Julien said, meaning it.
He had let those particular connections drift a little over the recent months, buried under the sheer volume of everything else demanding his attention, and made a quiet note to himself not to let that continue.
That same day, Julien flew back to Liverpool. After a night's proper rest in his own bed, he was at Melwood the following morning, right on time.
The training pitch was already alive with noise and movement when he arrived. Teammates spotted him coming across the car park and called out warmly.
"Julien!" Sterling was first to reach him, jogging over with a wide grin and a hand already raised for the greeting.
De Bruyne grinned from a few steps further off, pulling his gloves on against the chill. "You drew with the Dutch, I heard? I saw you came off at half-time—doesn't matter either way, friendlies are friendlies, mate. Come on, let's focus on United now!"
At the mention of United, Julien's smile turned easy and relaxed. "Honestly, I don't see it as a difficult match for us. United have been poor from back to front all season—Moyes' adjustments simply haven't landed, week after week. We can play to our own level, and win it comfortably."
"That's exactly what I want to hear!" Gerrard called across the pitch. "We beat them last time out. Let's make sure they feel it properly again this time."
The conversation bounced around the gathered group.
Then Klopp walked in, tracksuit zipped against the cold, clipboard tucked under one arm.
The training pitch quieted immediately, players were drawing together into a semicircle, eyes moving to their manager.
Klopp swept his gaze slowly across the group.
"Welcome back—all of you. I know the last half-month has been demanding. Matches, camps, travel, the fatigue that comes with all of it piling up. But I want to say something clearly, right now, before we go any further: the national team chapter is closed. From this moment, you each have one identity: Liverpool players."
He let that sit in the air for a second.
"From today, I need your full attention. Put the international stuff away in a drawer somewhere, shake off whatever tiredness is left in your legs, get your heads exactly where they need to be—because in two days, it's the derby. It's United."
His voice gained weight on that last word.
"I don't need to stand here and explain to any of you what this fixture means. You already know. It's not just three points on a table—it's a statement to our supporters, and it's a moment that can feed the belief running through this whole title push. You know exactly where United are sitting right now, what kind of season they're having.
But I'm not interested—not for one second in anyone easing off because of that. Underestimating an opponent means disrespecting yourselves first and foremost. It means disrespecting everything this club stands for, everything that shirt means to the people who'll be in that stadium.
No matter who we face, no matter what their form says on paper, we will come with everything we have. We play with red blood and teeth, and we will win this match."
Heads nodded firmly around the circle.
"Absolutely."
"Let's go."
The mood across the squad had turned electric in the space of a few sentences. Winning has its own gravity, its own pull that draws everyone toward the same point.
Julien joined in, his voice was cutting through with confidence, "Relax, Boss! We're ready. Every one of us, ready to go. We'll give them everything we've got out there."
Klopp's face broke into a broad smile at that, the tension in his shoulders was easing. "Good. That's the Liverpool I know. Remember—football belongs to the team. The win belongs to all of us together. For this club. For the fans who've waited so long for this. For each other, most of all. Full effort, take down United, and keep moving toward that title."
As his words settled over the group, the players felt it stir somewhere underneath the surface—that old, familiar hunger reigniting at the mere sound of those two words spoken aloud.
The Premier League.
Twenty-odd years Liverpool had waited for it, an entire generation of fams who had grown up without ever seeing it happen.
Maybe—just maybe—this was finally the year.
Training began shortly after, lighter by design—recovery work mostly, enough to shake the stiffness loose from international travel and reconnect bodies with the club's familiar rhythms after two weeks away.
That suited Klopp's purpose: not to grind the players down into the turf on a Tuesday morning, but to bring them gently back into form, sharp and ready rather than exhausted.
As he stood at the edge of the pitch watching his squad move through their drills, his mind had already drifted ahead to the match itself.
Moyes had taken a relentless battering in the press all season, page after page of criticism, but the man still had something to him underneath it all, some residue of the qualities that had earned him the job in the first place.
And while Liverpool had already beaten United once this season, that result had come under rather different circumstances than what was waiting two days from now.
This derby, Klopp thought quietly to himself watching the ball move crisply between his players, would be my first.
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