The 30-year-old Belgian coach shines in France with the Stade de Reims thanks to the methods learned in playing ‘Football Manager’
On October 13, 2022, when the Stade de Reims announced the resignation of Óscar García, former Barcelona footballer and former coach of Celta Vigo, Will Still’s life took a 180 degree turn. With the team classified in 15th place and level on points with Angers, marking the relegation spots to Ligue 2, the board opted for Still. Despite being a priori a risky decision, the game couldn’t have gone better.
The 30-year-old Belgian coach, the youngest of the five major leagues, collects 17 consecutive games without defeat in the national championship, dreams of Europe and managed to stop PSG at the Parc des Princes, where he achieved a valuable draw. And all without the UEFA ‘A’ Coach’s Licence, for which Reims has to pay 25,000 euros per match.
The son of English parents, Still soon realized that it would be very difficult to fulfill his wish to become a footballer and, marked by the hours spent with his brother playing the video game ‘Football Manager’, where every club in the world may have been managed at all levels, its journey began in the banks. “We were committed to creating a squad, choosing a team, organizing practices, making sure the team was going in the right direction… all the details. There was nothing better than that, even if it was virtual,” he explained to Coaches’ Voice.
After studying at a university in England and coaching at the Preston North End Academy, he returned to Belgium to gain experience in professional football. Still, he offered himself to several clubs, and after getting several ‘no’ answers, Tweede Klasse side Sint-Truiden offered him an unpaid job as an analyst. His work did not prevent him from continuing to record flying hours in the ‘Football Manager’. “I remember when I was in Sint-Truiden, I also tried to win the competition with them in the game,” he says.
Earliness has always accompanied the Belgian. At the age of 24 he got the chance to become head coach of Lierse, a team that played in the second division. “I was terrified. But we did very well. We were penultimate in the league when I took over in October and we managed to turn the situation around and move up the rankings,” he said.
In 2021, at the age of 28, he became the youngest coach in the Jupiler Pro League (Belgian First Division) with Germinal Beerschot. Immersed in that phase, he received the call from Reims to become Óscar García’s assistant coach. “I could hardly believe it. It was completely unreal that Reims knew who I was, and even more so that they had followed my progress as a manager. It was not a well-known name outside Belgium, where I was born, raised and spent my entire career developed,” he says.
This season, Still has had the chance of a lifetime and he’s taking it now. Reims has stunned the fans with a bold and offensive proposition and the coach has promoted players like Balogun, one of France’s revelations of the season. That boy who played for hours and won everything in the ‘Football Manager’ has fulfilled one of his goals, but he has yet to fulfill his big wish: coach West Ham. “I’m a huge West Ham fan and that would really be my dream. Obviously I still have a way to go so I have to work hard and spend many hours in the real world. I’m ready for the challenge” , he proclaims.
Source: La Verdad
I am Shawn Partain, a journalist and content creator working for the Today Times Live. I specialize in sports journalism, writing articles that cover major sporting events and news stories. With a passion for storytelling and an eye for detail, I strive to be accurate and insightful in my work.
