The next morning, Renee showed up at Joy's door bright and early, dragging her suitcase behind her.
Joy blinked at her in confusion. "Wait, what? You're leaving already?"
Renee flashed that sweet, bubbly smile of hers. "Yup! Time to head home."
"Home… as in with him?" Joy asked, still trying to catch up.
"No, no, JOY, you totally got the wrong idea about Colin," Renee said, playfully nudging Joy's arm. "He explained everything last night. The guy's just a huge fan and respects the heck out of you. He really did want to give you some pointers, that's all."
She flipped open a little notebook crammed with scribbled notes (looked like Colin's handwriting) and waved it around like evidence.
"See? You misunderstood him. He genuinely wanted to talk shop with you. But since things got awkward between you two, we figured it's best we just head out. Colin said we'll get going and let y'all cool off."
Joy just stood there, brain totally stuck in neutral, no good comeback ready.
Renee gave her a quick hug, all giggles. "Anyway, I'm gonna go find Colin now. Catch you later, bye-bye~!"
Once Renee bounced off, Joy shut the door and paced her room, turning the whole thing over in her head. Something felt off—like, way off—but she couldn't put her finger on what.
Screw it. She grabbed her phone and shot a text to Hughes.
Hughes knew everybody in Hollywood and then some. The guy was a walking gossip vault; if something shady was going down, he'd heard about it.
Joy typed: "What's the deal with Colin Gallo?"
Her phone buzzed almost instantly: "Deal with what?"
Joy hammered out: "Like, is he a decent dude? Trustworthy?"
Ten seconds later: "In what way?"
Joy started typing, deleted it, typed again, then just went for it: "With women."
Crickets. Nothing for a solid minute.
Joy spammed: "HELLO?? EMERGENCY HERE!"
Finally: "He hitting on you?"
Joy nearly threw her phone. "NO. Renee. Renee is dating him!!"
Two seconds later: "Not great."
Joy groaned, tossed her phone on the bed, and rubbed her temples. There was no talking sense into Renee right now; girl was deep in the honeymoon-phase fog. Fine. Joy would wait till the rose-colored glasses came off, then have the real talk.
Joy ended up staying in Madrid for two whole months, completely buried in editing the Euro promo. By the end of it, the thing was basically done.
The crew she'd brought along had been side-eyeing her the entire time. She'd licensed footage from a ton of superstar players, but hadn't shot a single frame with any actual humans in real time. Everything was pulled from old matches: iconic goals, players losing their minds celebrating, the works.
Same deal with the "regular people" shots—no on-location filming. Just clips yanked from documentaries and news reels: fans going nuts in the stands, commentators jumping out of their chairs, families screaming at their TVs, random people on the street hugging strangers when their team scored.
Yeah, she basically made the whole promo out of archive footage and clever editing.
The concept? Show the ripple effect one insane goal can have across the planet—those last-second goal-line clearances, game-winning tackles, lightning-fast touches. Pure football legend moments.
Then zoom out to real reactions from people outside the stadium: fans, reporters, cameramen, random passers-by—all losing it the second the ball hits the net. The idea was to make you feel how one split-second on the pitch can mean everything to players, fans, even entire countries.
In three minutes flat, you saw every single A-list player you could dream of—their absolute peak moments, the goals that live rent-free in every fan's head.
Plus, for the first time ever in something like this, two legendary goalkeepers actually showed up: Casillas and Buffon.
The second Joy finished the rough cut, she shipped it off to UEFA headquarters in Switzerland. The brass over there dropped everything to watch it together.
Picture this: UEFA's big conference room, President Čeferin and every top exec glued to the projector, watching a three-minute promo.
Before it started, half of them had been grumbling: "Seriously? She didn't film one real person. What kind of promo is this gonna be?"
In 2025, you're telling me someone can make a hype video that gets fans pumped without a single current superstar cameo? Come on.
Then the video kicked off.
First ten seconds in, jaws hit the floor. Oh. She didn't bring in zero players—she brought in everybody… from the archives.
After that, nobody was analyzing anymore. They were just straight-up speechless, totally sucked in.
Mind-blowing. Heart-pounding. Hype level: off the charts.
That was the universal verdict.
It felt different from every promo they'd ever seen—like a whole new category of hype. It hit you right in the childhood memories, every roar you ever let out when your team scored in the dying minutes.
Turns out the only thing that got old was the calendar—not the passion.
Three minutes. Gone in a blink.
Čeferin shut off the projector, leaned back, and smirked. "So… thoughts?"
Dead silence for a few seconds.
One exec finally spoke up. "That thing's got straight-up epic energy."
Another laughed, "Any adjective feels too small. 'Insanely awesome' is the only thing that fits."
Someone else grinned. "This girl played us. She said 'no superstars needed,' then crammed thirty+ legends—peak-value combined worth over three billion dollars—into three minutes."
True, most of them were only on screen for a second or two, sometimes sharing a single frame, but damn it worked.
The whole thing was one giant, glorious mash-up of football culture… yet somehow never felt messy or chaotic.
When the screen went black and you snapped back to real life, all you could think was: "How the hell did she do that? And what if I never feel this hyped again?"
Anybody who'd doubted hiring a Hollywood movie director (especially a woman) instead of a seasoned ad agency? Yeah, they shut up real quick.
This wasn't just a promo—it was a masterclass. Every cinematic trick in the book, executed perfectly.
If you're not a die-hard fan, you'd still think it looks cool. If you live and breathe football? You'd be bouncing off the walls from all the little details she nailed.
UEFA wasted no time flying Joy back to Switzerland. Čeferin sat her down personally, walked through a few notes, and Joy tweaked whatever he asked for.
This time, literally every exec showed up to the meeting—nobody wanted to miss meeting the woman who'd just pulled this off.
Čeferin didn't hold back the praise in front of everyone. "Joy, you knocked this one out of the park. When fans see this, they're gonna lose their minds—in the best way."
Joy had been low-key nervous; she'd never cut a promo before. Movies are two hours to build emotion—cramming that same punch into three minutes is a whole different beast.
She'd leaned hard on stuff she remembered from advertising classes in her… past life, but still wasn't 100% sure it would land.
Seeing the UEFA brass grinning ear-to-ear? Yeah, she nailed it.
Čeferin did have a couple suggestions—"from one football nerd to a very talented outsider"—and Joy happily took notes.
She hung out in Switzerland a bit longer, polished the final cut, and boom: masterpiece complete.
The final version dropped to a room full of cheers and applause.
UEFA and Čeferin were already calling it the most epic Euros hype film of all time.
Oh, and Čeferin dropped one more bombshell: even though the tournament wasn't until summer, they were breaking tradition. They were starting the hype campaign months early—and this promo was going live way ahead of schedule.