Nico Williams made his FWC debut for Spain against Costa Rica on Wednesday. His older brother Inaki will make his big debut against Portugal on Thursday.
Despite making his World Cup debut and winning 7-0, Costa Rica’s performance was not what Nico Williams expected. “I would especially like to play against Ghana.” The Spanish international told AFP before the tournament.
There couldn’t be any Spanish player more expected at this World Cup. One of the players, Nico, competes with none other than his brother Inaki. Nico is Spanish red and Inaki who is 8 years older is Ghanaian.
“It’s a sibling rivalry. We never imagined two brothers reaching this level, playing for the same club (Athletic Bilbao) in the national team and in the World Cup respectively.” Nico said, referring to the sibling rivalry. before quickly becoming emotional.
The Williams brothers were born to a Liberian mother and a Ghanaian father who fled Accra, the capital of Ghana, to Melilla, an autonomous Spanish city in North Africa, in search of a better life. “Seeing my parents suffer, what they went through…me and my older brother, we gave it our all and it was a bit hard, especially for me (Inaki). My older brother wanted to protect me and help. I. Here I am now.”
Nico’s pain point covers about 4,900 km of the Sahara Desert, where temperatures can reach 50 degrees Celsius. This was the distance and condition that Felix Williams and his partner Maria Artuer traveled to reach Melilla. It goes a long way. barefoot. Details that Inaki did not know until he was 20 years old. Maria, who was pregnant with her eldest son during the trip but didn’t know it, decided to share everything with him two years after making his debut for La Liga club Athletic Bilbao.
“They did part of it (the journey) in trucks, and one of the trucks was an open-back truck that carried 40 people and went for days,” Inaki told The Guardian last year. “People fell and stayed on the road, people buried them. Danger, thieves, rapes and suffering await. Some will be deceived. The trafficker takes the money and says “This is where the journey ends”. Get out and leave nothing, water and food. Children, seniors and women. People leave not knowing what to expect.
When Felix and Maria finally crossed the border into Melilla, they were stopped by a guard who said they were immigrants and undocumented. In prison, the couple were only granted political asylum in Bilbao after telling the authorities they were from a country at war, on the advice of a Catholic lawyer.
Inaki later learns that this will not happen when she learns that her mother is holding her. “If I had known, I would have known.” she told him