the story of Will Still

The case of manager Will Still is quickly making the rounds, with the Belgian-English player making his debut as Reims coach and still unbeaten in both Ligue 1 and the French Cup – twelve games, six wins and six draws, including the last one against PSG. Still has become particularly popular not only for his results, not only because every game on the bench is costing his club 27,000 euros (fine due to lack of licence, for now), but above all for how he learned the trade – that is, thanks to Football Manager.

The years on Football Manager —

“I was just a normal kid playing Football Manager“, Still said, recalling how – despite the parents not wanting to – “I would spend whole nights from 10:00 in the evening thinking ‘ok, just one more game’, and then finish at 4:00 in the morning. ‘Oh, I’m still here’. But what I’ve realized now, the crazy thing is that it really is that realistic.” The team he played with? West Ham, of course, a passion he inherited from his father. Even early in his career, as he explained to the Guardian, ‘even though I was manager of a professional team, I still felt things about Football Manager. I never thought Football Manager had an influence on my real life career but, looking back on it now, it definitely did. I was obsessed with it as a kid and playing with it probably lit the fire that I have as a coach on the sidelines.”

From virtual to real —

“Growing up, I was obsessed with it. My brother and I played it non-stop – we weren’t allowed to have a PlayStation, so we played Football Manager on the family computer. We built a team, organized the training, made sure the team was going in the right direction – all the details. It didn’t get any better, even if it was virtual. And then here I am, actually doing it. I remember, when I was at Sint-Truiden, I was trying to win the championship with them even in the game.” Now, however, the coach is “very busy at Reims”, so he has had to put this hobby aside. “If someone had told me I would be manager of a Ligue 1 team at 30, I would have told them to punch me in the face. The idea that I would coach a team against Neymar, Kylian Mbappe, Sergio Ramos and Marco Verratti, and on the bench opposite Christophe Galtier, was crazy.” Madness… like a video game.