Will Still has never hidden his ambition to one day coach in England, one of his homelands. Coach of Reims since 2022, his contract with the current eighth in Ligue 1 is coming to an end in 2025. He could pack his bags immediately, as he mentioned in an interview with The Athletic.
Return to his land
He had already been linked with a move to the Championship last December, when Sunderland were looking for a replacement for Tony Mowbray on Christmas Eve. If the Black Cats had preferred to hire Michael Beale, free, rather than pay compensation to Reims to afford the services of Will Still, the Anglo-Belgian knows that his adventure across the Channel is only postponed.
“I would definitely work for a Championship team
“It’s just my place. I want to go home, said the coach. I’ve been abroad all my life and worked all my life in an environment that wasn’t quite my own. And I just want to go home. […] I would definitely work for a Championship team. What I now understand is how important people are. And how important finding the right place will be to my career. Clearly, the Premier League is every manager’s ultimate dream […] But if there’s a Championship club that’s ambitious, wants to work in the right way, be open and honest about things, and really try to push to get somewhere, then I’d love to do it. »
Transparency and honesty
Will Still especially wants “people who understand [sa] way of working”, because it is “different, a little strange sometimes” according to him. Throughout his often piquant media interventions, he has shown his obvious preference for frankness rather than political correctness. “If something is shit, I want someone to tell me, ‘It’s shit’.”
In Reims, he would have been advised not to express his feelings too much on the transfer market. “But I was just being honest,” the technician justifies himself. They said people looked up to us and we needed to stay positive. I responded that I wasn’t being negative, I was just stating the obvious. » Because after letting Folarin Balogun (return from loan), Jens Cajuste (Naples) and Dion Lopy (Almeria), Stade de Reims lost another important element of its rotation in Azor Matusiwa, who left for Rennes for €15 million .
“We might as well be honest about it and say, ‘this is the reality of the situation.’ Basically, we sold our best player and are now looking to find a new balance. […] Because of the DNA of the club, we recruit players and then sell them. So every six months to a year, the workforce must be renewed. This is what happened again in January. I totally respect him, I understand that finances are important. You can’t have both. Either you earn a little money and sell players, remain a stable club in Ligue 1 where we finish between eighth and twelfth. Either you decide to really go further, keep your best players, do that for a year or two, participate in European competitions and then earn your money. »
After four matches without a victory in the Championship, Stade de Reims plays Sunday (3:00 p.m.) in Le Havre.
2024-02-21 14:16:16
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