Camp Nou’s smallest crowd of the season, 63,405, was stunned. Barcelona’s Copa del Rey quarter-final second leg against Athletic Bilbao was 11 minutes old when Aritz Aduriz, the Basques’ 25-goal top scorer, hit a pass forward which split Gerard Pique and Thomas Vermaelen in the Catalan defence.
Aduriz, 34, improves with age and there are calls for him to be reintroduced into the Spanish national side over five years since he made his solitary appearance.
Galloping onto the end of his ball was another forward who came through Athletic Bilbao’s cantera, though one at the other end of his career to Aduriz.
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Inaki Williams’ African roots thriving at Athletic Bilbao and Spain’s Basque region
Inaki Williams, the first black player to score for the Basque club in their 117-year history, is 21. When he got his first goal, against Torino in last season’s Europa League, he celebrated by shouting, almost with disbelief, “I’ve scored! I’ve scored!” His dreams were coming true, his coach Ernesto Valverde admitted that his progress in the first team has been a huge surprise. Clearly loving life as a top-flight footballer, Williams tweeted a photo of himself running away from Cristiano Ronaldo with the ball.
Though Bilbao-born Williams made his first-team debut in December 2014, replacing the injured Aduriz and played 25 times last term, this has been the breakthrough season for the forward with a Liberian mother and Ghanian father.
His confidence is soaring, he has scored 11 goals for Athletic this term, second only to Aduriz, who plays as the central striker. Williams usually plays on the right, making his scoring rate even more impressive. And he missed the first five league games of the season due to injury.
In Wednesday’s match against Barcelona, Williams timed his run perfectly Aduriz’s through, he took one touch with the outside of his right foot to control the ball, then another with the same part of his foot to put the ball past Marc-Andre ter Stegen in the Barca goal.
It was coolly taken, and levelled the tie at 2-2 on aggregate, though Athletic would later lose 5-2 on aggregate, the score on the night 3-1. Williams was Athletic’s best player, not only running at Barca defenders, but tracking back to defend the waves of Barcelona attacks.
Athletic, who rely only on Basque players, were becoming too dependent on Aduriz, so Williams’s rise has brought relief and as he showed again, against Barcelona, he has got the confidence and talent to perform against the best.
The two sides keep meeting – this was their seventh time in eight months – and they have faced each other in three Copa del Rey finals in the past six years. Williams scored his side’s only goal when they lost the 2015 final 3-1 at Camp Nou.
Barca usually triumph, but Athletic hammered Luis Enrique's side 5-1 in this season's Spanish Super Cup to win their first trophy in 35 years. Williams had been injured and did not play a part, but he has since become integral to Valverde's plans. Scouts from Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City have attended games at San Mames, so Athletic were last week pleased when Williams agreed to a new contract, until 2021, which included a €50 million (Dh200m) buyout clause. It is not inconceivable that a buying club will pay that fee, but Athletic are under no pressure to sell the forward whose surname could not sound less Basque alongside Aduriz, Iturraspe and Iraizoz.
Williams’s rise reflects changes in Bilbao, which has become a more multicultural city. Jonas Ramalho, the mixed-race son of an Angolan father, made the first team in 2011. Athletic fans are proud of Williams’s progress and sing “Inaki! Inaki!” – the most Basque of first names.
Williams’s parents chose that name for their son because they wanted him to fit in. Their family had changed their own names to do that, when Inaki’s father worked for the British Army in Ghana. “That country has a sizeable British colony,” explained Williams, now a Spain Under 21 international. “My grandparents were working for some people in the military and had to choose that name, Williams, and we’ve just stayed with it throughout the generations of the family.”
When Spain’s economy crashed, his father, Felix, joined the thousands of Spaniards in London looking for work. Inaki’s first professional contract with Athletic’s B team allowed Felix to return home and be reunited with his wife.
Williams, who can play across the front three, is learning under a fine manager in Valverde and alongside Aduriz, of whom he says: “My idea has always been to focus on everything he does and says because he’s a great striker. For me he’s one of the best in the world and I just try to observe and copy everything about him that I can so that I can improve in all aspects of my game.”
Williams is improving markedly. He looked raw when he broke through last season, now he appears confident, hungry and wiser in his decision-making. He is young, strong and is a goalscorer. He is also so fast that he was clocked running at 35 kilometres per hours last season, the fastest in La Liga.
Athletic are out of the Copa del Rey, but they will make use of Williams’s talents in the domestic league and the Europa League, where they face Marseille next month. And they will make good use of his skills while they still have them to appreciate.
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