Inside a fairly large office, two figures sat apart from each other. The office had a lot of transparent glass facing the yellow of the just-rising sun, which reflected against it, making the inside of the office shine with a golden hue.
William sat across from Miguel with a small smile on his face. Miguel leaned in from his chair, took a look at a folder, and sighed.
"Alright," Miguel said. "Let's get into it."
William nodded slightly.
"As you should know, financially, we have to work within several constraints." Miguel continued talking. "La Liga regulations, existing commitments, and some other situations mean that we're not in a position to be especially aggressive in the transfer market."
William nodded slightly. It wasn't like he had accepted the job with the mindset that he'd be given several bags of cash to spend as he liked in the transfer market.
"You're looking at a transfer budget in the region of fifteen million. That's before sales. If we're able to sell players, then that number can improve, but as it stands, that's all you have."
William blinked slightly for a few seconds before letting out a sigh. That was a lot lower than he expected. They were poorer than the poorest team in the Premier League.
"And what about the wages?" William asked with a little bit of hope in his voice. The wry smile that Miguel gave in response killed it immediately.
"We have a structure, and we're not breaking it for anyone. If someone comes in, someone has to go out."
Translation: we're flat broke.
William nodded again. It came as a surprise to him how little he had to spend, but he couldn't be too surprised. He knew how much the economy within the league had declined in recent years. Even European giants like Barcelona didn't have much to spend.
"Alright then," William said after a few moments of thought. "If that's all we have to spend, then we'll have to be careful."
"Good," Miguel said. "Your staff, what's the situation with that?"
"I've finalized most of it," William replied. "The assistant coach has agreed to come. I'll email the details to you so that you can discuss terms with him and agree on a contract."
"That's fine then," Miguel said. "Training resumes in a few days, so we should be done by then, and they should be able to start then."
"That's all for now," Miguel said.
William left the office and walked around the training facilities. He was meeting with the club staff hired by the club, such as the team's nutritionist and so on.
After meeting with them and briefly chatting, William exited the training facilities and drove back to his hotel, doing whatever it was that unmarried bachelors did late at night.
In the next few days, William spent a lot of time getting in contact with his staff. He already knew who he was going to pick for a few positions, mostly the backroom staff he had worked with in his past life. But he also acknowledged that he had to make some changes and brought a few more experienced hands into the mix.
After sorting out his staffing issues, William spent the next few days assessing the state of the squad. A few players like Edinson Cavani and Gabriel Paulista were confirmed to be leaving the club as free agents, and there were also players like Nico González returning to Barcelona after the end of his loan spell, so William was losing a lot of important players.
"And to put the cherry on top, we're absolutely broke," William sighed, running his hands through his hair. He stared at the files in front of him again before setting them down and writing an email to the club's scouts. He was going to be working them overtime.
The only good thing about everything was that the system guaranteed him a good youth prospect. But even then, he didn't know what position the youth prospect would play, so it was basically like playing Russian roulette.
The next few days passed in a blur, and the players and staff were scheduled to resume for preseason training.
William was seated inside his office. In front of him were two men. One of them had blonde hair swept to the side, blue eyes, and quite a large frame.
His name was Aaron Teynall, one of William's old friends from Carrington. They had come up through the ranks together, playing for Manchester United's youth teams, although Aaron was a couple of years older than William. While William went on to debut for Manchester United, Aaron wasn't lucky enough to be called up to the first team.
Still, he had a pretty good career, shuffling between lower end top division teams.
He was the first person William called up when presented with the coaching role, both in his alternate and current life. Aaron was one of those people who truly lived and breathed football, and he was also quite intelligent.
He was a tactical mastermind but lacked the charisma and man management skills needed to take over as a manager, so he had always served as one of William's assistant coaches, the Robin to his Batman.
The other person was Alejandro Andre, or Alex. He was also a former player but wasn't as well known as the other two in the room. He was equally a tactical mastermind, though he had considerably more experience and was visibly older than the other two coaches. And most importantly, he was Spanish.
"Alright, boy-" William started speaking but paused when he remembered how old Alejandro was.
'Yeah, things could get awkward like that later'.
"Alright, let's get moving."
It was finally time. A week after signing his contract, it was finally time for him to begin work and take the first step toward becoming the best manager in the world.