Will Still names Carlo Ancelotti and Eddie Howe as inspirations


 
 
 
 
 
 

Will Still is making headlines in France.

In summer 2022 he was appointed assistant to manager Oscar Garcia at Reims. Then after only one win in the opening 10 Ligue 1 matches of the season, Garcia was sacked.

This happening (on 13 October 2022) a day before Will Still was set to turn 30, the French club naming him as caretaker boss.

After five matches, Will Still getting the job permanently.

The (now) 31 year old proving a sensation with Reims, steering them away from what had looked certain relegation to finish eleventh last season.

This season even better, Reims currently standing in ninth, only eight points off the top four and with a game in hand.

The longer Will Still story is that his parents moved from the UK around 1990 and he was born in Belgium.

Will Still then raised in both England and Belgium and though a promising youth footballer himself, decided at the very early age of 17 to move from Belgium to England in order to study to become a football coach at college in Preston.

As part of his studies, Will Still did an internship at Preston North End and as part of that acted as assistant to the manager of the club’s under 14 side.

There then followed a return to Belgium and throughout his twenties working as a video analyst for various clubs there, before getting a number of coaching / assistant manager roles. Before then the big move when getting the job as assistant at Reims in 2021.

Will Still only lasted four months before moving back to Belgium as assistant at Standard Liege (Still explained that part of the reasoning behind this was the fact that his UEFA pro license was registered in Belgium, so he was having to drive back and forth between Belgium and Reims to attend courses, which was becoming a strain on his time).

However, summer 2022 then seeing a return to Reims when offered the assistant’s role again.

Now 17 months since taking over as Reims boss, Will Still has been speaking to AS (as translated by Sport Witness) as he continues to make headlines, during the interview he was asked about which managers inspire him…

“I was inspired by everyone.

“There is no coach better than another.

“I think there are different ideas throughout the world of football that we can learn from.

“Ancelotti too, who has done absolutely crazy things.

“But we also have Eddie Howe, in Newcastle, who does things very well.

“You have to try to capture as much information as possible to be able to apply it and not stick to just one style.

 “For me, positional play is creating superiority over the opponent to be able to play forward. That to me is the definition of position play. Play vertically and as fast as possible.

“I don’t like having the ball for hours and hours, that doesn’t interest me. I like to play forward and be vertical. And create superiorities and, in addition, generate a system with which we can play quickly forward.

“And when we lose the ball, react as quickly as possible in short distances to be able to steal and attack again.”

Rather bizarrely, many Sunderland fans have convinced themselves that Will Still would be desperate to come to their club. Many Mackems claiming this as they forced out Tony Mowbray, the same when forcing out Michael Beale, now the same as they are seemingly intent on getting Michael Dodds out of the team boss position, after Sunderland made it six in a row on Saturday, half a dozen league defeats on the bounce.

Difficult to see an exciting young manager such as Will Still wanting to leave a very promising situation towards the upper reaches of Ligue 1, for the mess that is Sunderland AFC.

Interesting though to see where Will Still DOES end up, as surely only a matter of time before he gets attractive offers from elsewhere.

Nice to see though that Eddie Howe is also such an inspiration for this up and coming young manager at Reims.

Maybe though Eddie Howe is also a very obvious inspiration.

The now Newcastle United manager was still in his twenties when injury ended his playing career and he moved into coaching, before becoming a manager at Bournemouth at the age of only 31.

A fairytale story then following, Eddie Howe taking the minnows from the brink of falling into non-league, all the way through every division before establishing Bournemouth in the Premier League for a number of years, against all the odds.

Another fairytale story rapidly becoming reality at St James’ Park, still only 46 and Eddie Howe doing incredible things with Newcastle United.

No wonder Will Still sees Howe as such an inspiration.