At a highway service station, Abdou, a young runaway, befriends Georges the Arab gas jockey. Using a final blow-up with his boss as an excuse, Georges quits his job and decides to accompany Abdou to Marseille where the boy fantasizes about attending a soccer match in the World Cup. Their pockets empty and their heads full of dreams, they travel together, supporting each other over a growing series of obstacles. They meet a menagerie of people along the way: Louisa, the petty drug dealer with a big heart, Oleg the Russian who sells anything you need, the Gypsies who save Georges and then abandon him... Georges returns to his previous existence, as the professional soccer player Ahmed Najid. For Abdou it is an initiatory trip, an apprenticeship at life. Both are seeking their identities and one finds himself still looking for what the other has already lost.