The Williams brothers build a ‘monument to football’ on the anniversary of Luthchleas Gael

Photo: Juan Manuel Serrano Arce/Getty Images

It could have been a scene from their youth but for the 48,781 people who were there with them. Nico Williams had just scored the kind of goal you’re not supposed to score with your wrong foot, falling as he sent the ball flying past Jan Oblak into the corner, now standing on the sideline from north of San Mamés, the place bursting into songs of praise. Atlético Madrid lost, his team from Club Luthchleas Gael hugged him and all the fans who would have given half a chance started chanting his name. Then his big brother knelt down, and invited him to put his weight on him as he used to and cleaned his shoe.

When Iñaki Williams was small and Nico Williams was smaller, he often got his brother up in the morning, made his breakfast, prepared his clothes and took him to school. In the evening, he would return to pick him up, bringing a sandwich. He would take Nico to the games – sometimes he would referee – and to the pitch to play, dusting him off afterwards. One day he won one, Nico said to the former Spanish coach Vicente del Bosque, he socked to his brother and encouraged his friends to exchange his brother’s side. Iñaki was 18, Nico 10.

Related: Girona’s devastating ‘power attack’ at Barça shows they are La Liga’s favourites Lowe’s side

Nico was special, for sure. They are both. Within a year or two, they were at Athletic, Iñaki joining in 2012, Nico following in 2013 when they were 11 years old. Since April 2021, they have been playing in the first team together; now 29 and 21 respectively, they are leading it. This Saturday’s 2-0 win over Atlético Madrid was Nico’s 100th game for the club. It was Iñaki’s 400th, 251 of them playing in a row, a record that has never been matched. It was also the game in which Athletic, the club that embodies tradition and identity 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 on the site that was then the general grade. Every living president serves the 80-year-old whose symbolism escapes from adjectives – “the people’s goalie” in the words of the bertsolari or the street poet Jon Maia – he was given a guard of honour. Then Jon Rahm did the honorary kick-off in a traditional black Iberico top, the last of 12 ambassadors during the year, including Thomas Hitzlsperger, pelotari Jokin Altuna, Honey Thaljieh, and Miguel Isasi Balanzategi, a member chosen in a lottery to represent them all. After that, a veterans game against Porto, the first ever Athletics club in Europe, ended when Aritz Aduriz finally got the salvation denied him by the pandemic, drinking at all. Panenka.

The story continues

And then in the middle, Athletic took apart Atlético, the club that started as their champion in the capital. Coach Ernesto Valverde said it was a performance “fit for celebration, a great game against a great opponent”. This, said Nico, was “for Iribar”. As Alberto Barbero neatly said in Marca, “this morning they unveiled a statue; In the afternoon, they built a monument to football”. By half-time, Athletic had hit the post twice, with further efforts going wide and a free-kick into the stands but it was not scored. That is, the law says, when they kill you for letting them out. Instead, they kept coming, relentless, running at Atlético from everywhere. “Those aren’t lions, they’re dragons,” read the headline in AS. And by the end, they had created 14 chances against Atlético’s three and scored two against Atlético. “They were much better than us,” admitted Diego Simeone. “In another time, the fans would have taken out the hankies but no one uses them anymore,” said El Correo.

This might be the best performance by anyone so far this season. And still it wasn’t to enough of the outlier, at least not here. Since losing to Real Madrid on the opening day, Athletic have only been beaten twice – in the last minute at Barcelona and in the derby at Real Sociedad – and never at home, scoring two, four, four, two, three, two , three, and four at San Mamés. No one has more home goals and San Mamés already have more than all of last season. Girona coach Michel said his side were the better side and the win brought them within two points of Atlético, just three of Barcelona.

Over the last seven games Athletic are averaging more than 15 shots a game and have been unbeaten in seven. Last season they created strength, but scored too little: now, it is falling into place. Gorka Guruzeta, who made his first game back in 2019 but was to Sabadell and Amorebieta and back, suffering two relegations in a row, scored eight times, including the opener on Saturday. That is already more than he got last season, but it is more than goals; it’s about the way he works around it. Oihan Sancet has three goals, four goals and has created 27 scoring chances this season. And then there is with them.

Williams is the best winner in Spain this season. Williams is also the second best winner in Spain. Nico has three goals and five goals. Iñaki has eight goals and three assists. Bryan Zaragoza has more dribbles than Nico. Rodrygo does not have more shots than Iñaki. Only Jude Bellingham, Antoine Griezmann and Borja Mayoral have more goals. No one has more assists than Nico and Iñaki only has two goals. Between them they have created 58 chances (Nico 30, Iñaki 28), tearing into teams, one on each side of the field and yet both on each side, with no escape from the family. Not until they left: first Iñaki and then Nico, both of them to the standing eggs.

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

In the first half on Saturday they owned both positions – one each – and in the second it was Iñaki’s run that revived the move and resulted in Guruzeta’s opener. From almost the same spot, Nico produced a shot that was so exceptional and unexpected – “I asked him since he was left on his feet,” Valverde said afterwards – that ensured victory and more. Out of all the 12th anniversary ambassadors there, one must have been very happy – Iñaki and Nico’s mother, Maria – and when the eldest knelt down to clean her younger’s shoe , it could hardly fit better, a sense of belonging. Positive action, only a little different, deeper: there is warmth, a journey, something in the photo that is becoming love and a million laces tied, a thousand washed devices, care, pride.

Even if they managed to get the foot wrong.

Children of Ghana who crossed the Sahara, Iñaki was born in Bilbao – destiny, he calls it – eight years before Nico arrived. With Maria working around the clock and their father Felix leaving to look for work in London, they were lucky if they saw him once a year, which meant he was not only a brother but a dad, – Athletics coach Marcelino calling him “a real father, who is his father. The influence he has on Nico and how he behaves is absolutely decisive”. There is a reason why Iñaki is the lion in Nico’s tattoo and that he is the cub. Living sacrifices and economic difficulties that his brother had never seen, determined to succeed in all of them, Iñaki was a strict father, the responsibility of guiding him as well: not only that he could that Williams Jr. wouldn’t have made it without that fatherly role, it’s possible neither did Williams Sr. Instead, the two of them are together – and for the best athletics side in a decade.

When Nico managed to get a second place medal after the Super Cup final in 2022, Iñaki gently warned him, telling him to put it back, not forgetting the cost of come here, the dream they lived. Then he laid a comforting hand on his neck as he watched, devastated, and Madrid lifted the trophy. When Nico missed the chance to take them to the Copa del Rey final last season, Iñaki went straight to his mother’s house where Nico still lived to support him. And when Nico extended his contract two weeks ago, allaying fears of the departure of the most exciting player Athletic have produced in a generation, Iñaki was there to plant a huge kiss on the cheek.

They would remain inseparable – at club level at least after Iñaki fulfilled a promise to his grandfather and agreed to play for Ghana the same week Nico was called up for Spain – and the next day Nico celebrated with a stunning goal scored against Rayo Vallecano. , running to embrace the brother who had done the same four minutes before. The next time he was at San Mamés – last Saturday – the land they call the cathedral and among their community where they grew up, Nico did it again, providing a perfect close to the anniversary of Athletics, Iñaki there waiting for him just as he always was. was.