"You know, we once had an Englishman managing this club before..."
'Fucking Gary Neville!'
William had a calm smile on his face when he heard the question posed to him by the Valencia sporting director. It was a joke, obviously, so it didn't really matter. But William was nervous so he felt like he had to have a suitable response ready in order for him not to diminish his chances.
"I guess it's a risk that you'll just have to take". William answered, causing Corona to smile back at him.
"We'll be in touch". Peter Lim said, after which William bade goodbye to the trio before leaving the coffee shop himself.
As soon as the meeting finished, he went to the airport. He already had a flight booked down pending the end of the meeting. He would've liked to stick around but him being in Valencia would've been a little suspicious.
A few days passed after the meeting, and by then Valencia had already announced that they wouldn't be continuing with their previous manager. They hadn't announced the name of the new manager yet, but a few rumors had already started swirling about.
Interestingly, a few of them had his name in them.
During those few days, Valencia had already sent a draft of the contract to William's agent and after revising it, William was set to formally sign the contract in a few days. After that, he would officially be the manager of Valencia C.F.
William had also been very busy during the past few days. He was familiarizing himself with the system that he randomly got. After a couple of days, it became apparent to him that the system really was like a Football Manager game.
It had so many different features which included, the scouting feature, tactical advice feature, the academy management feature, and the staff recommendation feature.
The features weren't free to use and he had to pay for them through the use of Credits, something that was like the currency for transactions with the system. There were a lot of different ways with which he could earn credits, he could earn them by winning matches, by completing system missions and also achieving or exceeding laid out objectives for the season.
For example, if Valencia's expectation for the season was to avoid relegation, then he would get rewarded if he kept them up for the season or to take it a step further, got them a comfortable midtable finish.
Lastly, he could get credits by winning trophies.
That was basically all the system offered to him presently, but it wasn't like he could do anything with it. Every single thing he could do required the use of credits, but as the system painfully reminded him, he was broke... at least when it came to credits. He couldn't actually be broke. Even though he retired very early, he had earned enough from football to have enough money to last a moderate family for a couple of generations.
"System, I want to see my stats"
[Ding! Loading Host's stats]
[Name: William Hutchingson]
[Age: 35]
[Club/Affiliation: None]
[Board Confidence: None]
[Fan Confidence: None]
[Media Perception: decent player who should make a decent manager]
[Reputation: 2/5]
[Balance: 0 Credits]
William sighed when he saw the things listed. They weren't a lot, so it was easy for him to process.
A few more days passed, and William was contacted by Peter and Miguel, the Valencia sporting director. At that point, his secret negotiation with them was no longer a secret and he was supposed to fly to Spain so that he could sign the contract and be officially announced as the new manager of Valencia.
William didn't waste much time flying out of England to Spain. He was escorted to his house, and after sorting out the ownership documents, he was driven to the Mestalla Stadium, the home ground of Valencia. That was where his contract signing would be taking place.
As soon as he got there, he was greeted by the trio he met with in the coffee shop, as well as several other staff who were in charge of the media and brand promotion. Apparently, him becoming the manager of Valencia would do wonders for their PR and they were planning to milk it for as much as they could.
The contract signing wasn't made that much of a big event. They took some pictures of William signing the contract, and of William talking with the club executives.
After a couple of hours, it was done. What came after, however, was a complete nightmare for William.
They wanted to create an announcement video for him, so while the club executives left, they had him wait behind while they brainstormed content ideas before settling for something.
While he walked about the Mestalla, the media team had cameras set up to take videos of him at an unaware angle, and while the videos were playing, they had him do a voiceover.
When it was all over, it was already dark outside and William was just grateful that he could finally run home.
As soon as he got home, he took a shower, freshened up and then went on social media. As usual, the footballing world made a big deal of the news. He was a really big name as a player and now he was officially stepping into a coaching role at a big club, so there was bound to be a lot of scrutiny.
After seeing a couple of posts, he finally came across the announcement video that was posted by the club. After a few seconds of debating, he clicked play, and he heard his voice as the video started.
"I'm not here to be a savior, I'm simply a guy trying to return a great club to its former heights..."
William grimaced as soon as the video started.
"I told them they should've let me say something cooler. This is so lame", William thought to himself as the video progressed.