CHAPTER 61 — BYLINES
The article began with a hesitation.
Julien Morel stared at the blinking cursor in the newsroom, hands wrapped around a paper cup that had long gone cold. Around him, keyboards clacked, phones rang, and a television murmured highlights no one was watching. He had pitched three ideas that morning. All three had been declined.
Then the editor had sighed, "Fine Marseille reserves had a match recently, everyone wants the next big thing before he's big so try to find an angle."
An angle.
Julien opened his notes. One line stood out, underlined twice.
Attacking midfielder. Ghanaian. Recently promoted. Assist on debut.
It wasn't much but it was something. Marseille hadn't produced anyone big for a while, this could be their big break and also his
He typed slowly.
On a frozen afternoon at a modest training ground outside Marseille, a teenager wearing the white and blue jersey stepped onto the pitch without celebration.
Julien paused. Deleted without celebration. Rewrote it.
…stepped onto the pitch quietly.
That felt closer to the truth, even if he wasn't sure why.
Julien hadn't spoken to Kweku Mensah. He had watched him, though. From the sideline. From the way the boy scanned before receiving the ball, the way he released it early, the way he jogged back after the assist as if he'd misplaced something rather than changed a match.
Julien knew restraint when he saw it.
He also knew his editor would want context.
---
Julien began digging, starting with the academy itself but he met a wall.
The academy press officer had been polite but firm. Limited access. No interviews yet.
So Julien searched the mainstream media. The U-18 World Cup made things slightly easier for him.
A regional tournament mention.
A youth national team roster.
A brief note: Boarding school in Ghana. Mother is employed locally. Father absent.
Julien leaned back in his chair.
Absent fathers were a familiar theme in football writing. He resisted the temptation to turn it into a hook.
Instead, he called a contact.
A youth coach from the academy itself, Julian didn't care about the press officer's refusal.
"Mensah?" the man said. "Yeah. Quiet kid. Not really a Messi or Ronaldo but he's a smart player. Don't panic."
"Anything else?"
A pause. "He listens."
Julien smiled faintly.
Listening was underrated, most kids who'd gone from a youth World Cup final to a team like Marseille would have let it get into their heads. Football couldn't recall all the talents whose pride had destroyed them.
---
The article began taking shape, and Julien was so engrossed in writing that he wrote through lunch.
Mensah's journey to Marseille is not the kind that arrives with headlines. There were no viral clips, no sudden bidding wars. Instead, there were early mornings, long bus rides, and a boarding school that kept him far from home longer than most boys his age.
Julien stopped.
Was that too much?
He reread it.
No. It felt right.
He imagined the boy in a dormitory, phone pressed to his ear, snow falling outside a window he wasn't used to. Julien had never been to Ghana, but he knew displacement. He knew what it meant to arrive somewhere new and be expected to perform immediately.
He kept going.
> At Marseille, Mensah has been eased in carefully. Coaches speak of his awareness, his willingness to play within structure. There is no rush to label him, no hurry to promote him beyond his readiness.
Julien deliberately avoided comparisons.
No "next this."
No "future that."
Just what was.
---
Halfway through, doubt crept in.
Was this story big enough?
Julien glanced at the sports homepage. Transfer rumours dominated. A scandal brewed elsewhere. Youth football rarely survived past the bottom fold unless it was a big team unearthing a new diamond.
He thought about cutting it short.
Then he remembered the moment — the assist — and how the stadium had reacted a second later than expected, as if the crowd needed time to understand what had happened.
He finished the paragraph.
In his first appearance with the older youth group, Mensah did not demand attention. He earned it, one decision at a time.
Julien exhaled.
That line mattered, it fit the persona he'd created of Kweku.
---
Elsewhere, Kweku didn't know any of this.
He was at school when the article went live, seated in the back of the classroom, trying to focus on a worksheet. Camille had a different lesson so he was by himself. His legs still ached from training. Outside, snow drifted lazily past the windows.
Louis leaned over, phone hidden beneath the desk.
"Hey," he whispered. "That's you, isn't it?"
Kweku frowned. "What?"
Louis turned the screen.
The headline stared back at him.
MARSEILLE'S QUIET ADDITION: WHO IS KWEKU MENSAH?
Kweku felt heat rise to his face.
"That's not—" he started.
"You," Louis said, grinning. "Definitely you."
Kweku glanced around. No one else seemed to notice. The teacher kept talking.
He took the phone reluctantly.
The photo was from the match — him mid-stride, eyes focused, expression unreadable.
He didn't recognise himself.
---
Reading It
He read the article twice.
Then a third time.
It wasn't exaggerated. That was the strangest part. It didn't feel like praise or scrutiny — just observation. Like someone had watched him closely without interrupting.
The line about boarding school made his chest tighten.
The line about his mother did too.
He handed the phone back. "He doesn't know everything."
Louis shrugged. "No one ever does, it's their job to write what'll sell not what is true."
---
Julien submitted the piece just before the deadline.
His editor skimmed it, frowning.
"No quotes?" the editor asked.
"Not yet."
The editor leaned back. "It's… quiet."
Julien nodded. "So is the player."
A long pause.
"Fine," the editor said. "We'll run it."
Julien returned to his desk, unsure whether to feel relieved or foolish. He refreshed the page once. Twice.
A few comments appeared.
Who?
Another academy kid.
Interesting read.
It wasn't viral.
But it was real.
---
That evening, Kweku called his mother.
She had already seen the article.
"Your uncle sent it to me," she said, voice careful. "Is it true?"
He smiled softly. "Most of it."
She laughed. "They make you sound older."
"I feel older," he admitted.
A pause.
"I'm proud of you," she said. "But remember — words don't play matches, pride comes before the fall."
"I know," Kweku replied.
He hung up and lay back on his bed, staring at the ceiling again. Outside, the city hummed softly, indifferent.
Somewhere, a writer he didn't know had told part of his story.
Not the whole thing.
Just enough to let the world notice — quietly, carefully — that he was there.