The Williams crossed a desert barefoot to flee a war. Now, their sons are at the World Cup – one playing for Spain, other for Ghana. Who is winning

“Above all, I’d like to face Ghana,” the Spain winger told AFP pre-tournament.

 There wouldn’t be another Spanish player who’d be as keen about that matchup at this World Cup. For, one of the players Nico will be up against will be none other than his brother Inaki: Nico wearing Spanish red, Inaki – eight years elder to him – in Ghana’s colours. “It’s that sibling rivalry. We could never have imagined that we would reach this level, two brothers playing for the same club (Athletic Bilbao), each one in a national team and at a World Cup,” Nico said, giving a glimpse into the competitive relationship between the brothers before quickly pivoting to the emotional. The Williams brothers were born to Ghanaian parents, who had fled to Spain as refugees of the Liberian civil war. “Seeing the suffering of my parents, what they have gone through…..they have given everything for us, my brother and I, suffered a lot for us, above all for me, (Inaki) had it a bit worse than me. My brother is protective of me, he wants to help me, and because of that I am the person that I am today.”

 The suffering Nico spoke of features some 4,900kms of Sahara desert landscape, in temperatures that touched up to 50 degree Celcius. That was the distance and those were the conditions Felix Williams and his partner María Arthuer travelled to flee from Ghana’s capital, Accra, to get to the autonomous Spanish city on the north-west coast of Africa, Melilla. Quite a bit of it on foot. Barefoot. Details which Inaki wasn’t aware of until he turned 20. Maria, who was pregnant with her elder son during the journey but did not know, decided to share it all with him only two years after he made his debut for La Liga club Athletic Bilbao.

 “They did part (of the journey) in a truck, one of those with the open back, 40 people packed in, then walked days,” Inaki told the Guardian last year. “People fell, left along the way, people they buried. It’s dangerous, there are thieves waiting, rapes, suffering. Some are tricked into it. Traffickers get paid and then halfway say, ‘The journey ends here.’ Chuck you out, leave you with nothing, no water, no food. Kids, old people, women. People go not knowing what’s ahead, if they’ll make it.”

 When Felix and Maria finally did make it across the border to Melilla, the civil guard detained them when they told they were migrants and had no papers. Only after the couple told the authorities they were from a country at war, as advised in jail by a Catholic aid organisation lawyer, that they were offered political asylum in Bilbao. Inaki would later learn that all of it wouldn’t have happened had his mother known she was carrying him at the time. “If I knew, I would have stayed,” she’d tell him.

He’s played 236 matches in a row for the team, a La Liga record spread across six seasons that only came to an end this August after the striker sprained his right ankle ligament. It’s a feat unheard of in modern-day football, one that is a testament to Inaki’s fitness, drive and, most of all, technical abilities. Since his debut in 2014 for Athletic Bilbao, the second oldest club in Spanish Primera Division, Inaki has featured in 286 appearances for the club, scoring 80 goals across all competitions apart from 48 assists. In 2022, he stands tall as one of the most important players in the club’s modern history.

However, despite his performances in top tier Spanish football, Inaki was given a cold shoulder by the national team for the longest time. His only start for Spain came in a 2016 friendly under World Cup against Bosnia and Herzegovina under Vicente Del Bosque. Since then, the Bilbao boy hasn’t been part of all four subsequent Spanish managers’ plans (Fernando Hierro didn’t get to choose the squad in his four match World Cup stint).

For young Nico on the other hand, the transition from Spanish U18s to U20s and then finally the senior side happened across a smooth three year timeline from 2020. In September, he received a call-up from Luis Enrique for the UEFA Nations League. A call that would propel him to Spain’s 26-player shortlist for the World Cup.

That bromance Nico talked about with his elder brother came about when the Williams’ learned about the news regarding their youngest.