Will Still and Stade de Reims Are Trend Setters

From backstage to front and centre, Will Still’s Reims are a shining light for others in Ligue 1

Assistant managers are often rarely mentioned in days of victories or turmoil but when the football gods strike and a head coach is sacked, these invisible conscripts are thrust to the top of a club’s chain of command. In most cases, after some weeks, they join their former boss down the job centre but in rare cases, the interim manager defies straitened circumstances, and the job becomes theirs.

The role can be a poisoned chalice, once the infamous new-manager-bounce dissipates the team’s old failings can manifest once more but in the case of Will Still and Reims, he has bestowed the club with a run of form that has destroyed the narrative of mediocrity that has shrouded the club in recent times. 

Unbeaten in 16 Ligue 1 games,Reims are a force to behold this season, incredibly Still is yet to taste a league defeat since succeeding Oscar Garcia as head coach, their example is even being copied across France’s top division. Mathieu Le Scornet and Romain Pitau, with Strasbourg and Montpellier and of course Didier Digard who is still officially at the time of writing interim boss of Nice.