In the StoryThe Last Match
In ten days, Ilyès will play the final. He remembers the injury waiting for him there. Ilyès Benamar’s career has led to the match an entire country has been hoping for. Every training session, every gaze, every promise points toward it. For him, another image intrudes: his body giving way at the moment everyone expects him to go all the way.
Open the novel ↗A moment in the opening pages
He joined the first square with Adrien Vasseur, twenty-four, his face still young enough for photographers to sometimes ask him to smile as though he were in high school. Adrien played right wing, occupying territory Ilyès regarded either as a complement to his own or as his property, depending on his mood.Read the excerpt ↗