[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-emperor-of-football-julien-de-rocca":3,"chapter-emperor-of-football-julien-de-rocca-emperor-of-football-julien-de-rocca-chapter-59":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","Emperor of Football: Julien De Rocca",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1556046,2020,"Chapter 59: Chapter-59 Next Amiens","emperor-of-football-julien-de-rocca-chapter-59",59,"\u003Cp>\"Well done, but watch out for their dirty tricks,\" Rothen patted Julien, happy about the goal while warning him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Julien nodded.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He was well aware of these aspects of the game.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In professional football, not everyone could truly stick to sporting ethics.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Malicious tackles that ended opponents' careers were all too common in professional football.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps the most typical example was the 2001 Manchester derby, when United captain Keane, due to his long-standing grudge with Haaland, deliberately stamped on his opponent's knee with his studs during a phase of play where neither had the ball, causing serious injury.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This incident forced Haaland to retire at just thirty due to cruciate ligament damage in his left knee.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Keane was only fined £150,000 and suspended for 5 matches. Later, in his autobiography, Keane admitted it was deliberate retaliation, causing public outcry. Eventually, under Ferguson's rebuke, he modified the relevant content in his autobiography \"I'm Not a Villain.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At Lens' home ground, the Bastia players didn't celebrate too long.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Appropriate provocation was fine, but if they really got the home fans worked up, it wouldn't be good for either side—there were plenty of examples of mutual destruction.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With just over ten minutes remaining, Jean Garcia seemed to have given up on attacking, having his Lens players try to hold their half of the pitch.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After seeing Julien's sequence of dribbles, he kept shaking his head—this simply wasn't the kind of striker a Ligue 2 team should have.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Losing to the league leaders was acceptable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Currently, Lens found it difficult to either get promoted or relegated.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Lens players hadn't initially wanted to give up like this—they felt they had pent-up anger that needed venting. Whether from the scoreline or the physical battles on the pitch, they'd taken a beating.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Especially Ben Saada.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The chaos in this match had started because of him, but he was also the one suffering most.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He was being targeted by Bastia players repeatedly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Every time he touched the ball and tried to advance, the opposition would add a little extra to their challenges.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The key was that these actions were neither too big nor too small—right in the referee's zone of uncertainty.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the 83rd minute, Jean Garcia substituted Ben Saada to let him cool down.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After his contract with Nice expired, Lens had signed him as a free agent intending to build around him as a key player, giving him the number 7 shirt.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Unfortunately, he couldn't live up to expectations.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This season, despite starting twenty league matches, he had zero goals and zero assists.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His three years at Nice had been wasted years.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had even been called up to the French U17 team and won the U17 World Cup with them—otherwise Nice wouldn't have been interested.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But he had stagnated.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As he left the pitch, watching Julien being treated like a star by his Bastia teammates, he felt an indescribable frustration—a breath seem to have been caught in his chest that he couldn't release.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Comparing himself to others was truly soul-crushing. Right now, he could only be described with one word: miserable!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With both sides intentionally slowing the pace, the match only became chaotic during that earlier period of confusion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After Julien's goal, the situation stabilized.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This continued until the referee blew the final whistle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Tweet!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>One long blast.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lens 0-2 Bastia.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Hadzibegic hugged his assistant coaches and players in celebration—they continued to lead the table.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Eleven matches remained. They maintained control of their championship destiny.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After the match, Hadzibegic was stern-faced during his interview. He didn't answer other questions but focused on the malicious foul against Julien.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"I naturally trust the referee's decisions, and I'm confident his eyesight prescription is adequate—after all, he precisely spotted our 3-centimeter offside while missing someone using lumberjack techniques on a seventeen-year-old player!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yellow card?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No, that was absolutely a red card offense.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, perhaps the referee had his own grounds for the decision, but you can't come out and say it was a refereeing error only after a player's season is over.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"My blood pressure is still spiking! That wasn't football—that was a lumberjack's work! Look at the slow-motion replay—the studs made contact with his shin and ankle first, not the ball! Our medical team will conduct a comprehensive examination of Julien.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Meanwhile, Jean Garcia ignored the foul incident, saying, \"That chaos was the result of players acting irrationally. We should focus on football.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"As for the match? We lost—there's nothing to say. I've had many defeats in my life, but they're all in the past and no longer matter. I only focus on our next opponent and how we can win.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the dressing room, while showering, Julien counted his victory points: 15 points.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Current total: 25 points.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Indeed, as his ability gradually improved, point acquisition in the second division was becoming quite limited.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After the match ended, despite the team's victory, many people in Bastia continued to criticize Ben Saada. On social media, they harassed him so much that he deactivated his accounts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As a product of Bastia's youth system, he was stripped of his Bastia citizenship by the Bastia fans.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Someone even threatened him: \"If you dare return to Bastia, I'll make you experience the same flying tackle that Julien felt.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The fans rallied around Julien.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>During the flight home, his teammates also discussed how he could protect himself.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Julien himself wasn't particularly bothered, as malicious fouls were part of football.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As long as they didn't happen to him, that is.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Bastia's next match was in three days, on the 17th.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The players didn't have much time to rest.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After careful consideration, Hadzibegic decided to rotate heavily for this match.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Their opponents were fellow promoted side Amiens.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As a historically significant French club, Amiens had little to boast about beyond their long history.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This team's proudest achievement was probably in April 2001.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Under then-coach Troussier, Amiens, as a French third-division team, conceded only 2 goals in 7 French Cup matches, with particularly outstanding defensive performances.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the French Cup semi-final, they defeated Ligue 1 side Troyes 4-2 on penalties, reaching their first-ever French Cup final.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although they ultimately lost 0-1 to Strasbourg in the final, this achievement had already created amateur football legend.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Unfortunately, that was ancient history.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This season, after promotion to Ligue 2, Amiens had managed only 4 wins, 12 draws, and 11 losses in 27 matches, with 24 points placing them at the bottom of the table.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Fellow promoted side with Bastia— bookends of the league.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>_______________________________________________________________________\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Check out my patreon where you can read more chapters:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>patreon.com\u002FLorianFiction\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thanks for the support\u003C\u002Fp>",1101,"2026-06-06T07:35:06.179Z",1,"novelbin.me","13d7fd9008dae0b2b2fb56c0a015ba69afac2022eb4f7f751a6b4d9820613bf0","emperor-of-football-julien-de-rocca-chapter-60","emperor-of-football-julien-de-rocca-chapter-58",628,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Femperor-of-football-julien-de-rocca-cover.jpg"]