The New Paris District Stadium was hosting the final of this World Cup, with France Team facing Milan Team.
A stadium originally built to hold twenty thousand spectators had been crammed with more than twenty-seven thousand people. Their earth-shaking cheers could still be faintly heard in the city a kilometer and a half away. In the front row of the VIP seats on the south side, Joseph held a small Fleur-de-lis flag and watched the players fighting desperately for possession. Though the tactics and techniques of modern football were still primitive, its intensity far surpassed that of later generations' matches, always enough to set one's blood boiling.
Well, the players on the pitch were spilling hot blood.
As France Team's number ten pulled off an exquisite sequence of dribbles before lofting the ball into the net, the stands erupted once more in wave-like cheers.
The several scoreboards over ten meters tall at the four corners of the stadium immediately changed to 5:0.
Only four minutes remained before the end of the match. France Team had essentially secured the championship of the first football tournament in which the entire world had truly participated. Soon, the referee's whistle sounded.
The French players immediately embraced in excited celebration, then came to the south side of the grandstand, lined up in a row, and bowed—their Crown Prince was seated there.
Joseph smiled and waved to them, then glanced back at the golden Hercules Cup placed behind him, a surge of satisfaction rising in his heart. In a moment, he would personally present the trophy to France Team's players.
Well, footballs signed by the entire champion team, jerseys, and such were no longer rare treasures to him. They seemed to have lost a little of their original charm.
Charles eagerly stepped onto the wooden platform