He rose from assistant manager of an under-14s team to facing off with Lionel Messi in just ten years.
It’s fair to say that 30-year-old Will Still, the youngest manager of any club in Europe’s top football leagues, has had a wild ride to coaching.
Still went from obsessing over the Football Manager computer game as a teenager to being a head coach at 24, and now is in charge of Stade de Reims in France’s top division.
In his own words, as he wrote this week for The Coaches’ Voice, “At basically any point in my life, if someone had told me I’d be the head coach of a Ligue 1 side at 30, I’d have told them to punch me in the face. It would have been a totally ridiculous suggestion.”
But there’s one big problem. He still doesn’t have his elite-level coaching badges. It means Reims pay a €25,000 ($A38,540) fine every match he’s in charge!
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It’s just another fascinating titbit in the remarkable story of one of the rising stars of football coaching.
Still was born in Belgium to British parents, and by his own admission, wasn’t the best footballer around while growing up.
He told the Daily Mail: ‘I was a holding midfielder … I wasn’t the quickest – I can run the 100m in about 10 days.
“(But) I’d never stop running … I think people absolutely hated playing against me because I was the biggest See You Next Tuesday [c**t].”
A master of football’s dark arts, as a teenager anyway.
“I’m not like that in day-to-day life,” he said. “Not at all. But once I got on the pitch I was the dirtiest b****r ever. My mum was always embarrassed to watch me.”
But it was the hours he spent on a popular computer game, Football Manager, that lit the fuse for his meteoric journey in management.
“I’d been obsessed with it growing up,” he wrote for The Coaches’ Voice. “Me and my brother would play it relentlessly – we weren’t allowed a PlayStation, so we played Football Manager on the family computer.
“We got into building a squad, picking a team, organising training, making sure the team was going in the right direction – all of the details. There was nothing better than that, even if it was virtual!”
And by the time he was 17, playing in the academies of lower-level Belgian clubs, Still realised his playing abilities probably weren’t going to deliver him a career.
Instead, he went to England and studied a management course at Myerscough College in Preston. Part of those studies saw him work as an assistant coach of the U14s at Preston North End (an English second-tier club).
In 2014, he returned to Belgium, desperately hunting a job in senior football.
Still wrote in The Coaches’ Voice: “I went knocking on doors. I found the address of anyone I could in Belgian football and went to see them. ‘I’m young and I’m no one,’ I’d say. ‘But I’ve got experience at Preston, and I’ve got expertise from college. Can I, in any way, shape or form, be of any help?’”
He was turned down time and again – until he went to “the last club on my list”: second-tier Sint-Truiden, where he had played in the club’s youth Academy.
His first job? Filming an upcoming opponent and doing some video analysis. And so he commenced an unpaid apprenticeship as a fresh-faced 21-year-old. He went from video analysis (even using Football Manager’s database to scout rivals) to eventually helping out on the pitch as an assistant.
The club earned promotion to the top flight, before Still followed his head coach to top-tier rivals Standard Liege and picked up a Belgian Cup title. He even managed to face his brother Ed, the one he had spent so many hours playing Football Manager with! Ed was the coach of Charleroi at the time, and is still a top-flight head coach in Belgium at KAS Eupen, where the pair’s other brother Nico is also an assistant coach.
Will moved to second-division club Lierse in 2017 before another huge twist turned the tale. In October, manager Frederik Vanderbiest was sacked (rather unfortunately, after a dire run of red cards).
Then, the club president made a fateful phone call. As Still told The Mirror: “It was the beginning of October, he fired the manager and said, ‘right, Will, you are taking over.’ I was like, ‘mate, that is f***ing ridiculous. I’m only 24.’ He said, ‘No, no, no. I’m not bothered. You are good. Your training sessions are good and you know how to deal with things.’”
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Still was suddenly the youngest manager in Belgian history. But he picked up 21 points out of a possible 27, including a stunning seven-game win streak, and guided the team to a third-place finish after taking over when the club was second bottom.
Still wrote in The Coaches’ Voice: “Although I was the head coach of a professional team, I was also still trying things out in Football Manager as well. I’d never considered that Football Manager had had an influence on my real-life career but, thinking about it now, it definitely did.
“I got fixated on it as a kid, and playing the game probably ignited the fire in me that I have now as a coach on the touchline. And then here I was, doing it for real. I remember, when I was at Sint-Truiden, I was trying to win the league with them in the game as well!”
The club went bust and Still moved on again, this time back to an assistant role at Beerschot where Still helped yet another team earn promotion to the first division. And when the head coach left to take up a role in the USA in January 2021, Still was handed the reins and delivered an impressive ninth-placed league finish.
The club brought in a new manager at the end of the season. This time, then-28-year-old Still was offered a massive step up – assisting at Reims in France’s first tier.
After his relatively low-key jobs in Belgium, and despite his relative inexperience, Reims had taken a bold move. But it was a little over a year later when the greatest shock of his incredible story struck.
Head coach Oscar Garcia was sacked in October 2022, and Still was appointed caretaker manager.
It happened, once again, in a stunning phone call from the owners.
He wrote: ‘Oscar is leaving,’ they told me. ‘These are the terms of your contract, so you can’t leave. We want you to take over.’ I didn’t have much choice or time to mull it over.”
This was a 30-year-old whose only senior playing experience was in Belgium’s fourth tier as a teenager, whose only head coaching experience was brief stints in Belgium’s first and second tiers. And now, barely ten years after being an assistant coach to an under-14 team, Still was coaching against the likes of Paris Saint-Germain and their superstars Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe, and Neymar.
Indeed, he had just three days before facing PSG – but managed to hold off PSG for a goalless draw. It was the first time since March that the Parisian giants had failed to score in a match.
Still told the Daily Mail: “You reflect on it and think, ‘Why the hell am I doing this? How am I in the position to be coaching against these guys?’”
He’d been given six games before the World Cup break to prove himself as caretaker manager. He went unbeaten, guiding the team out of the relegation zone and all the way up to 11th. The owners were happy – and probably more than a little surprised.
Still was appointed full-time manager. But there was still one problem: he hasn’t completed his elite coaching badges. That’s hardly a surprise, given he never imagined he would be thrust into the deep end as manager of a Ligue 1 club so early in his career.
But it means Reims fork out €25,000 ($A38,540) as a fine each match he is in charge.
He told talkSPORT: “People say ‘Why’s he not done it before? Why’s he not done this or that?’ Well I’m only 30 and I couldn’t have actually got on the course any earlier.
“Normally it’s reserved for ex-pros or ex-coaches so I’ve only just got on it because that’s the normal path I have to follow.
“I’ve only just started it to be honest, the club have asked for a derogation to avoid the fines and say ‘this is stupid’, but at the moment every game I’m in charge the club gets a fine, I think it’s €25,000.”
As for Reims? They’re now 13 games unbeaten, including snaring another draw with PSG. No wonder the club is happy to keep paying fines – even if it it might hurt his paycheque.
“Well, it’s been, sort of, negotiated. The club said, ‘We’re ready to invest in your career. just as long as you keep winning!’” he told the Daily Mail.
