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Inaki Williams at all times knew his brother Nico was special, even when his younger sibling used to get so nervous he would ask Inaki, already a star in Bilbao, not to look at his youth games on the Athletic Club academy.
Inaki is a pioneer.
He helped raise Nico while their parents worked tirelessly to make ends meet, but in addition paved the way in which for his brother and other sons of immigrants to represent a club whose policy of only fielding players born or raised within the Basque Country inevitably meant the squad has historically reflected the predominantly white society around it.
Inaki, 29, was not the primary player of African heritage to represent the club – that was Jonas Ramalho, son of an Angolan father and Basque mother, in 2011 – but he’s the primary black player to ascertain himself at San Mames, having made greater than 300 La Liga appearances, including an unprecedented 251 in a row.
Nico, eight years his junior, is, in Inaki’s words, now “making waves in football” too, and any nerves the teen feels as of late are channelled into realising childhood dreams of acting on the largest stage alongside his big brother, mentor and guardian.
“As an older brother, it makes me really proud to see how he has grown, to see how he is improving as a footballer. He has no ceiling,” Inaki tells BBC Sport. “I’m here to help him, to teach him and give him everything he needs.”
It is a journey that began way back, and a great distance from Bilbao. Their mother, Maria, was pregnant with Inaki when she left Ghana with father Felix in the hunt for a higher life.
The couple crossed a part of the Sahara barefoot. Inaki only learned the complete extent of their story when he was 20. He had known his father had problems with the soles of his feet, but not that
Felix and Maria made it to the Spanish territory of Melilla in north Africa, jumping a border fence, but were detained by the civil guard.
A lawyer advised them to lie, to say they were from war-torn Liberia as an alternative and seek political asylum.
He arranged assist in Bilbao from Catholic priest Inaki Mardones, who met the couple at Abando railway station when Maria was seven months pregnant, found them an apartment and took them to hospital for Inaki’s birth.
Mardones baptised the longer term star, even gave him his first football shirt, and became his godfather.
He is whom Inaki takes his name from.
Not that settling in Spain made life easy for the family. They got state housing in Pamplona and worked any jobs they may.
Felix moved to London in the hunt for more opportunities, working the turnstiles at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge, and Inaki – still a child – stepped in to assist his mum raise Nico.
“We had to suffer a lot,” says Inaki, who would contribute to the family funds by refereeing football matches before his gift for the game was enough to bring Felix home and end his seek for work.
“Thanks to God we are all here together now, living a really good life. My parents are getting to watch their sons prosper, which is why they came here. Everything we do is for our parents.”
On Athletic’s radar for several years before officially joining the youth set-up aged 18, Inaki made his senior debut two years later in December 2014, sporting the identical red and white jersey he wore as a boy.
“Inaki had a very difficult life when he was very young,” explains Athletic sporting director Mikel Gonzalez. “He knows what his responsibility is, so you can see him like a superhero. His mum is, for sure.”
Maria would at all times be there to look at her boys’ matches. Nico joined the academy aged 12, when Inaki was already breaking into the primary team, and began to forge his own path to stardom.
“It was incredible watching him play,” says former Athletic head coach Gaizka Garitano. “So easy. He was very fast, incredible speed. Even more skilful than his older brother.
“Their mother was key for his or her improvement. Not only in football but in addition in the way in which they’re, the respect of everybody. It was very tough for them, Inaki especially.
“Inaki lived this situation at home very hard, without any money.
“The character of Inaki is predicated on that point. He could be very humble, at all times attempting to learn from the coaches, and could be very respectful.”
On Saturday the brothers will try to help Athletic win a first major trophy in 40 years when they face Mallorca in the Copa del Rey final in Seville.
More than 100,000 fans are expected to make the trip by air, rail or eight-hour drive, most without tickets. If Athletic return with the trophy, the legend of the Williams brothers will be immortalised.
The club’s importance, especially in the Basque province of Bizkaia, is clear.
Athletic are an institution, visible in all aspects of daily life. Each baby born in the region in 2023 received a bib commemorating the club’s 125th anniversary. So vast is their youth network that they boast more than 160 partnership clubs and every football-playing boy at under-11s level trains at the club’s Lezama base at least once this season.
As sporting director Gonzalez puts it: “The first song you learn is the Athletic song. The first jersey you will have is the jersey of Athletic. Your first time in a football stadium is at all times in San Mames.”
After a friendly appearance for Spain in 2016, Inaki chose instead to represent Ghana at international level. Nico meanwhile has committed fully to Spain, making four appearances at the Qatar 2022 World Cup. Both are also Basque.
Athletic are at the heart of that, providing Basque language lessons for all employees and celebrating Basque history and culture.
Even people without a general interest in football see the team as a vehicle for expressing their identity, a sense of belonging. “A faith,” one taxi driver calls it. He is at a wedding on Saturday but will join the bride and groom in front of the TV for kick-off at 10pm local time.
“Sometimes you discover individuals who don’t really like football, but still they’re Athletic fans,” explains midfielder Ander Herrera.
“That’s unique on the planet. You see individuals who have been season ticket holders all their lives and they do not watch other games; they only watch Athletic.
“In Bilbao, you find a woman who is 60 or 70 years old, she stops you in the street and she says to you that we have to win the cup and we have to qualify for the Champions League.”
Right now the town is decorated red and white. Flags hang from apartment windows, offices and council buildings. One metro station is decked out like San Mames, with a backdrop of fans looking over arrivals and departures.
Kids have been delivering letters to Athletic’s headquarters – the grand Ibaigane Palace – for players to open after they get to Seville.
At Bar Ledesma, where Pena Los Inakis, a fan club dedicated to the older Williams sibling, meet, you may eat Athletic crisps and sip club-branded beer.
Near the stadium, in the guts of the town, banners flutter and even a mannequin in a wedding dress sports an Athletic scarf in a bridal shop window.
The club have been the bridesmaid too over and over since their most up-to-date Copa del Rey triumph in 1984.
Six final defeats, including two in as many weeks when the pandemic delayed a heartbreaking loss to rivals Real Sociedad, have followed.
There is a sense that, with Mallorca fifteenth in La Liga, that is Athletic’s best opportunity yet to finish a long wait for major silverware.
The brothers, playing either side of the front three, have been fundamental on this cup run. Immediately after Ghana were knocked out of the Africa Cup of Nations, Inaki, flew back via Paris to reach in Bilbao at 11am on the day of the quarter-final against Barcelona.
He got here off the bench that evening to attain in beyond regular time before establishing Nico in a 4-2 victory.
Then, within the 3-0 semi-final second-leg win against Atletico Madrid, they assisted one another again. San Mames, ‘the Cathedral’, rejoiced.
“In terms of football, they are key,” says Herrera. “But on the personal side they are fantastic guys, always positive, always smiling.
“Even after they argue, which we’ve got seen a few times, like a brother discussion, it’s so funny for us and we find it irresistible.”
Just don’t mention La Gabarra.
In the successful 80s, when Athletic won back-to-back titles and the double in 1984, it became tradition for players to celebrate on a barge on the River Nervion.
Some believe talking about it since has become a jinx.
Pictures from those triumphs show a different Bilbao, an industrial city. Now it is an innovative hub of contemporary architecture with the Guggenheim museum, situated on the riverbank where a factory once stood, at the heart of its regeneration.
The football club reflects and embraces change, too. Throughout the youth system there are now players whose parents moved from Africa, South America or elsewhere. Midfielder Junior Bita, born in Ivory Coast, made the matchday squad last season. In the summer winger Alvaro Djalo will join from Braga. He is of Guinean descent and moved to Bizkaia as a baby.
“It was just a part of the historical technique of the country,” explains journalist Benat Gutierrez. “The Basque Country got a lot of immigrants before, but they were coming from other parts of Spain, due to this fact they were mainly white.
“African immigrants started coming in the late 80s, early 90s, probably the bigger influx in the 2000s, and it was just younger adult men who were not ready to start a sports career here.
“It has been a process until we’re seeing the sons and even the grandsons of those recent Basque residents which are beginning to be really necessary for Athletic.”
The club’s all-Basque selection policy began following a dispute about Athletic using English players in the 1911 Copa del Rey. With the Spanish football federation introducing a rule the following season that players must be Spanish, an aggrieved Athletic went one step further.
Through stubbornness and success, picking from a population of about three million has worked for more than a century – Athletic have never been relegated from Spain’s top tier and trail only Real Madrid and Barcelona in terms of trophies won.
Critics call it xenophobic or racist. Some cite the case of Miguel Jones, a Bilbao native born in Equatorial Guinea who trained with the club. Policy at the time, however, dictated players must be born locally, so Jones was let go and instead enjoyed a successful career at Atletico Madrid in the 1960s.
Jones himself dismissed claims of racism, citing white players who experienced the same fate, and celebrated Inaki’s emergence before his death in 2020. Perhaps more poignant than a trophy, then, will be the Williams brothers’ legacy.
“It has been very rewarding to see how Athletic has evolved across time,” says Gaizka Atxa, the Mexico-born founder of a fans’ group named after Fred Pentland, a legendary former English coach of the club.
“Athletic is a reflection of our society here and seeing the Williams brothers flourish signifies that any immigrant or son of immigrants has a decent opportunity to play for our club.
“That just opens wide possibilities as to what Athletic could become in the next few decades.”
How long they are going to proceed to flourish together is a topic of debate. Nico, who wears ‘Williams Jr’ on his back, is very sought-after, notably from Chelsea, where his father once tore tickets.
The 21-year-old’s against Atletico in December was one of six he has scored in 29 games for Athletic this season. He can also be joint second in La Liga’s assist standings.
“Inaki is helping Nico a lot in everything,” says sporting director Gonzalez. “Nico is a very good player, but he is very young and you can imagine a lot of noise around him with clubs, with agents. But Inaki is the best example of hard work.”
Athletic fans can reluctantly accept when a star player goes so long as they leave money – in the shape of a fat transfer fee – on the table. Aymeric Laporte, a £57m departure to Manchester City, for instance. Nico’s previous contract was attributable to expire in June 2024, but in December he signed an extension through to 2027, under his brother’s guidance.
“Inaki, of course, was also in on these decisions with his family,” says Gonzalez. “They feel very well here in Bilbao. They believe in the project. They are very happy with the team, with the coach, with everything. They also have the love of the supporters.
“For sure, at one other club Nico could have gone without spending a dime to a Champions League club, earning rather more money or winning more titles. But on this moment he has the sensation he has to proceed here and Inaki is a very necessary person for him to take the perfect decisions in his skilled profession.”
In any case, Nico and Inaki have unfinished business in Bilbao, a cup final to win – for the fans, for the city, for the club, for Felix and Maria.
Previously on Insight
Credit : www.bbc.co.uk
