William woke up gasping for air.
A bit of sunlight streamed inside his room through his partially opened window, giving it a rare aesthetic in the moment. He sat up from his bed, and casually looked around before his eyes settled on his phone.
He casually picked up the phone and looked at the date on it. After staring at it for a few seconds, he dropped his phone back on the bed and nodded.
"It wasn't a dream then", William muttered as he stood up from his chair and went towards the bathroom. As he entered the bathroom, he caught a glance of his reflection and rubbed his smooth jaw.
"It really wasn't a dream", William muttered again.
William couldn't really remember much of what happened after the match against Everton. It was all a little foggy to him. He remembered crashing out during the post match press conference and getting sacked shortly after.
Then he remembered going to a bar to drink all his sorrows away.
What he did remember vividly, unfortunately, was what happened when he was making his way home. He was interrupted by two angry Tottenham supporters, and... well, it didn't end well.
[
"Fucking wet him Seexs, or I'll do it myself"
"Are you a pussy nigga, why are you scared of a fucking white man"
"I swear to God I'll fucking kill him Wes"
Puchi!
]
Just like that he was left for dead while the assailants ran away.
William blinked a couple of times, trying to get the memory of the incident out of his mind. Fortunately for him, it was easy for him to do so because somehow him dying and going back to the past wasn't the strangest thing that happened to him.
[Ding! Coaching System Activated]
[Welcome host! Let's change the world of football together]
Shortly after he woke up some years in the past, he was hearing random notification sounds and messages. He didn't take it too seriously until in front of him was a holographical game like interface.
The first time he saw it, he thought he had finally run mad after all the setbacks in his coaching career but he was wrong. After spending almost two weeks in the past, he realized that everything had indeed happened.
He was really back to the past and he really had a game like mechanism, what he later learned was popularly called a 'system', awakened inside his mind.
William went and took a shower, dressed up before sitting on his work table with his laptop in front of him.
As soon as he realized that he had gone back to the past, William's first reaction was to thank his stars and he decided not to go back into managing on the spot. There were countless things that he could do that still made him close to football. He could be a pundit on a sports show, maybe the CBS Network or something.
I mean, who wouldn't want to have a two time Champions League winner talking with them on the show?
But when the system appeared, it also had a quest come with it.
[Ding! Host is currently unemployed. Go job hunting and land a new coaching job]
[Reward: 1x exceptional youth talent at destination club, 10 Credits]
[Penalty for failure: termination of the coaching system]
At first, William was okay with it. It didn't matter if he had a coaching system or not if he wasn't going to coach anyone, but then he couldn't help himself. He was given another chance, along with a guaranteed talented youngster, he couldn't just waste that.
Even if the first time ended badly, he had something that wasn't with him the first time, he had the coaching system, and as such he was sure that he definitely wasn't going to fail.
And after a few days of arguing with himself, William found himself in front of his laptop, after calling his agent, emailing several clubs that he thought could do with a managerial change, as well as clubs that didn't presently have a manager.
William Hutchingson was in the market, and he was looking for a new club.
"Time really is a gimmick", Hutchingson chuckled to himself as he got off the phone with his agent. According to his agent, he had received positive feedback and he was in consideration for a lot of jobs.
Three weeks ago, from his perspective, him looking for a new club wouldn't have been anything new. Now everyone wants to take the risk and hire him simply because he's William Hutchingson.
Naturally, William wasn't just letting his agent do all the work. Inside the emails that he sent to the clubs, he included his tactical philosophy, his plans for the squad and how he planned to help grow and improve their players.
It was when he was doing this that he realized how much of a cheat the system was. He almost didn't have to do anything. The system already compiled all of the player data, and made several reports on them based on how they would fit with his ideology. The only thing William had to do was type it out.
The coaching system was like ChatGpt on steroids!
For the next couple of weeks, William continued with the same approach until he ran out of clubs to call. At that point, all he could do was cross his fingers and hope a club reached out to him soon.
The deadline set by the system was inching closer, and he didn't want to lose it. Although he initially wanted to quit coaching, he already made up his mind to continue. It would be a bummer if he had to quit because he missed the deadline set by the system.
A few more days passed, and just when William was beginning to lose hope, he got the call that he had been so anxiously waiting for from his agent. A team finally called him for an interview.
He was expecting it to be a very small team, perhaps a team set for a relegation fight in the top division, but when he saw the email forwarded to him by his agent, he almost fell out of his chair.
"What the actual fuck..."
A/N:
Please do well to let me know how you're liking this book so far.