Williams brothers build ‘football monument’ on Athletic’s anniversary

Photo: Juan Manuel Serrano Arce/Getty Images

If it weren’t for the 48,781 people with them, it could have been a scene from their childhood. Nico Williams scored the kind of goal you shouldn’t score with the wrong foot, falling as he sent the ball flying over Jan Oblak and into the corner, where he now stood at San Mamés’ north end. The place overflows with songs of praise. Atletico Madrid went down, his Athletic Club team-mates hugged him and the fans, who would have done the same thing given half a chance, began chanting his name. Then his brother knelt down, asked him to put his weight on him and clean his boot, as he always did.

When Iñaki Williams was little and Nico Williams was younger, he would often wake up his brother in the morning, make him breakfast, prepare his clothes, and take him to school. He would come to pick her up in the afternoon, bringing a sandwich. He’d take Nico to games – sometimes he’d referee – and take him to the park to play and dust himself off afterwards. One day, Nico told former Spain coach Vicente del Bosque that he had won, blamed it on his brother and encouraged his brother’s friends to switch sides. Iñaki was 18 and Nico was 10.

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Nico was definitely special. They both do. They joined Athletic within about a year, with Iñaki joining in 2012 and Nico following in 2013, aged 11. They have played together in the first team since April 2021; They are currently 29 and 21 years old respectively and are leading the way. This Saturday’s 2-0 win against Atletico Madrid was Nico’s 100th game for the club. This was Iñaki’s 400th match; 251 of them were played consecutively, a record that will never be equaled. This was also the match where Athletic, whose tradition and identity are like no other, closed its 125th anniversary. And now it was perfect.

Before the match, a statue of goalkeeper José Ángel Iribar was unveiled outside San Mamés in what was once the goal. general class. Accompanied by every surviving president, the 80-year-old name whose symbolism eludes adjectives is, in his own words, “the people’s goalkeeper”. bertsolari or street poet Jon Maia was given a guard of honor. Jon Rahm then took the honorary kick-off in the traditional black Iribar jersey, the last of 12 ambassadors throughout the year, including Thomas Hitzlsperger. pelotari Jokin Altuna, Honey Thaljieh and Miguel Isasi Balanzategi, one member selected by lottery to represent them all. After that, a veteran’s match against Porto, the first club Athletic faced in Europe, ended with Aritz Aduriz finally making the farewell the pandemic denied him. panenka.

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And in the middle, Athletic dismantled Atlético, the club that started as its branch in the capital. Coach Ernesto Valverde said it was “a performance worthy of celebration, a great match against a great opponent”. Nico said it was “for Iribar.” As Alberto Barbero put it so well in Marca, “in the morning they unveiled a statue; In the afternoon they erected a monument to football.” In the first half, Athletic hit the post twice, shot three more times and sent the penalty into the stands, but could not score. The law says when they kill you because you set them free. Instead, they kept coming at Atletico relentlessly from everywhere. The headline of AS newspaper read, “These are not lions, they are dragons.” And in the end, they conceded 14 goals to Atlético, conceded three to Atlético, and scored two to give Atlético nil; Ander Herrera rightly insisted that he “fell short”. “They were much better than us,” admitted Diego Simeone. “Another time, fans would have brought out the tissues, but no one uses them anymore,” El Correo lamented.

This might have been the best performance by anyone so far this season. And yet it wasn’t HE It’s a very unusual situation, at least not here. Since losing to Real Madrid on the first day, Athletic have lost just twice – in the last minute at Barcelona and in the derby at Real Sociedad – and are unbeaten at home either; He scored two, four, four, two, three, two. three and four are in San Mamés. Nobody has more goals at home and they have already scored more goals at San Mamés than all of last season. Girona coach Michel said his team were the best he had ever faced and the victory brought them two points closer to Atlético and just three points closer to Barcelona.

Athletic have averaged more than 15 shots per game in their last seven games and are unbeaten in seven of them. Last season they created a lot but scored very few goals; Now everything falls into place. Gorka Guruzeta, who made his debut in 2019 but suffered two successive relegations after going to Sabadell and Amorebieta, scored eight goals, including Saturday’s opener. That’s already more than he achieved last season, but it’s more than goals; It’s about how he works around it. Oihan Sancet scored 3 goals, 4 assists and created 27 goal positions this season. And then there is to them.

Williams is Spain’s best winger this season. Spain’s second best winger is Williams. Nico has three goals and five assists. Iñaki has eight goals and three assists. Only Bryan Zaragoza has more dribbling ability than Nico. Only Rodrygo has more shots than Iñaki. Only Jude Bellingham, Antoine Griezmann and Borja Mayoral have more goals. No one has more assists than Nico, and Iñaki is just two behind. They created 58 chances between them (Nico 30, Iñaki 28), split into teams, one on each side of the pitch, and there was no running away from the family on either side. Until they left: first Iñaki, then Nico, both receiving a standing ovation.

Osasuna 1-0 Rayo Vallecano, Valencia 1-1 Barcelona, ​​Sevilla 0-3 Getafe, Athletic Bilbao 2-0 Atlético, Celta Vigo 1-0 Granada, Real Madrid 4-1 Villarreal, Las Palmas 1-1 Cádiz, Real Sociedad 0 -0 Real Betis, Almeria 0-0 Real Mallorca

Two submissions were theirs in the first half of Saturday – one each – and in the second it was Iñaki’s run that revived the move and opened Guruzeta. Nico fired a spectacular yet unexpected shot from almost the same spot – “I asked him since when he was left-footed,” Valverde later said – that secured victory and much more. Of all the 12th anniversary ambassadors there, the happiest was probably Iñaki and Nico’s mother, Maria, and when the eldest knelt down to wipe down the youngest’s trunk, the embodiment of belonging couldn’t have been better. An act of reverence, just a little different, deeper: there is a warmth, a journey, something reminiscent of love in the photograph and a million laces tied, thousands of suits washed, care, pride.

Even if they managed to take the wrong step.

The child of Ghanaians who crossed the Sahara, Iñaki was born (destiny, as he calls it) in Bilbao, eight years before Nico’s arrival. This meant that Maria worked all hours and their father Felix went to London to look for work, they were lucky if they could see him once a year, he was not just a brother but a father; former Athletic coach Marcelino described him as “a real father, a real father.” The impact on how Nico is and how he acts is absolutely decisive.” There’s a reason why the lion in Nico’s tattoo is Iñaki and the cub is him. Iñaki, who experienced sacrifices and economic hardships his brother had never seen before, was a strict father who was determined to do this for all of them, and he was also guided by his responsibility to guide: It wasn’t just that Williams Jr. couldn’t make it without that father. The role may not have been played by Williams Sr. Instead, the two are together for the best Athletic team of the last decade.

When Nico went to take off his second-place medal after the Super Cup final in 2022, Iñaki gently warned him and told him to put the medal back on and never forget what it took to get here, the dream they lived. Then, as he watched distraught as Madrid lifted the trophy, he put a comforting hand on his neck. When Nico missed the chance that took them to the Copa del Rey final last season, Iñaki headed straight to his mother’s house, where Nico still lives, to support him. And when Nico extended his contract two weeks ago to allay fears that the most exciting player Athletic have produced in a generation would leave, Iñaki was there to plant a big kiss on his cheek.

They would be inseparable, at least at club level, after Iñaki fulfilled his promise to his grandfather and Nico agreed to play for Ghana the same week he was called up to Spain, and the next day Nico celebrated by scoring a stunning goal against Rayo Vallecano. , runs to embrace his brother, who did the same thing four minutes ago. The next time he came to San Mamés – he went on Saturday – the place he called the cathedral and where he grew up among his congregation, Nico did it again, providing the perfect ending to Athletic’s anniversary, with Iñaki waiting for him there, as always. There was.