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From playing Football Manager to directing in the French league: the incredible story of the coach who embittered the PSG of Messi, Neymar and Mbappé

2023-01-31T09:30:07.182Z


William Still, the DT of Stade Reims, is 30 years old and did not have a career as a footballer but, thanks to the Football Manager, he managed to lead in Ligue 1. Now, he dreams of jumping to England.


Knowing your own limitations is one of the keys to success in any area of ​​life.

That is, understanding what one is good at, what is not, and concentrating on doing everything possible to enhance those virtues and hide the defects.

William Still understood this clearly.

​The

coach of the

Stade de Reims,

who drew on time this Sunday against the powerful

Paris Saint Germain

of

Messi, Neymar and Mbappe,

is passionate about football, but there was a moment when he realized that he was not going to become in professional footballer.

He didn't have the conditions. 

"He had come a long way until I realized that he was never going to make it as a player,"

he recounted in an interview with

The Coaches Voice.

He dreamed of feeling the adrenaline of a full field, so he took the other possible path to achieve it: being a technical director.

He already was when he played 

Football Manager, 

the classic video game that captivated millions of soccer fans around the world, and now he wanted to bring it to reality.


Galtier's PSG and Will Still's Reims drew 1-1 at the Parc des Princes.

AFP/Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt.

He is English, his parents are English and he went to university in England, but he was born and raised in Belgium.

His first experience as a DT was at the Preston North End academy and he fell in love.

"It was fantastic. I had trained before, with my brother in Belgium, but nothing at this level. 'These guys are really good!'

I thought.

After that, I knew that training was what I wanted to do"

, he details.

Returning to Belgium, he went looking for an opportunity.

He had not been a footballer nor had he had a career as a coach, so he had to open his own path.

As expected, he received many 'No's.

One after the other until finally

Yannick Ferrera

, a young Belgian coach who managed second division side Sint-Truiden, gave him a chance.

"Our first rival in the league plays tomorrow. Go see them, record it, edit it and give me your opinion within two days",

were Yannick's first words.

There he found what he was looking for, to be able to apply to reality the concepts that the

Football Manager had left him.

The hours and hours in front of the family computer screen, playing with his brother, were finally paying off.

He didn't want to miss the chance and did an exhaustive analysis of the rival, much more detailed than the coach expected.

He left quite an impression and inadvertently became the team's video analyst.

Although he was not paid, he was beginning to fulfill his dream.

"At first I did video analysis, but then I spent more and more time on the pitch.

Without anything official being said, I ended up becoming something like his assistant. First I organized the set pieces, then some rondo, suddenly I did passing practice. I was getting more and more involved in practice," he told 

The Coaches Voice.


Will Still's joy after the draw between Reims vs.

psg.

AFP/Anne-Christine Poujoulat.

the first big leap


Now with a few more scrolls, he became an assistant at Lierse, also in the second division, and there he received the first proposal to be a coach.

Before the dismissal of the main DT, the owner of the club chose him.

Despite the fact that Still was not convinced, largely due to the fear that assuming such responsibility generated in him, he took the position at the age of 24.

"I don't care about others. I like you. You have many good ideas and you are already doing it. You are going to do it,"

they said to convince him.

And they convinced him.

"It was crazy. I went from being a nobody to someone known, at least locally. Suddenly, they stopped me in business and I was on the news and on TV,"

he recalls, while acknowledging that at that time

"I kept trying things on

Football Manager."

Today, the famous Monday newspaper shows his face.

It is that the 30-year-old redhead directs Reims that just a few hours ago embittered the powerful PSG of Messi, Neymar and Mbappe.

He no longer has as much time to sit down and play, but he values ​​the influence that this video game had on him.

"I had never thought that the

Football Manager

could have influenced my career, but now that I think about it, it is clear that it did.

I became obsessed with the game as a child and it ignited in me the fire that I have now as a coach", he highlights.


He did not let the train pass

If this story is about taking advantage of opportunities, his path at Reims follows that same premise.

He began as an assistant to

Oscar García Junyent,

after directing Beerschot in the Belgian Primera, and before the dismissal of the Spanish coach they called him.

A new calling.

He began as an offer of six games, the last before the World Cup in Qatar, but his good results (two wins and four draws) kept him in charge.

"Like the bug that bites you in

Football Manager

, I wanted to have another opportunity as head coach.

But as in all stages of my career, I had not planned it. At no time did I think that I would be the manager of the Stade de Reims. And less at that moment"

, he remembers about that moment.

Already installed in the elite and enjoying his time in France, now he has a clear objective: 

"The child in me, the one who won everything at

Football Manager

, tells me to cling to the dream of coaching West Ham , my club".

look too

With Messi, Neymar and Mbappé, PSG played badly and missed a chance to move away at the top of Ligue1

Lionel Messi spoke for the first time as a champion: "I knew that God was going to give me a World Cup, from that day everything changed for me"

To the 'Supercampeones': the Japanese Mitoma made Mac Allister and Brighton celebrate with a great goal against Liverpool

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2023-01-31

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