Between Ghana and Melilla there are more than 4,000 kilometers. If they travel in clandestine trucks, on foot through the Sahara and threatened by the mafias, it becomes hell. Félix and María, the parents of the Williams brothers, had to make this horrible journey that thousands of Africans make when escaping their countries in search of a dignified life. Many die on the way. After jumping the fence and being detained by the Civil Guard, they finally avoided repatriation by requesting political asylum. They said they came from a country at war like Liberia. A lie, as pious as it was vital, that radically changed his destiny and that of his family.
Who would have told them then, when his future hung in the balance, that his youngest son, Nico Williams, would be the trigger for a centenarian football club like Athletic Club to regain the throne of the Copa del Rey against Mallorca. The barge will set sail from the estuary of Bilbao thanks to the youngest of the Williams, the result of a miracle in the bowels of Africa. The Bilbao goal was from Sancet and in the penalty shootout Agirrezabala took center stage, but Nico’s game was a monument, obviously MVP of the final.
He started nervously, like all of Athletic. It was difficult for him to lower the revolutions, to find the middle ground between his quality and his speed to be that unstoppable dagger on the left side. He started the match with a drive and a forced shot. He continued to face again and again a Gio González who went crazy. He managed to score after a wall of carats with Ruiz de Galarreta, but he was offside.
Before the break he sent a ball into the side of the net that many in the stands saw go in. And at the start of the second half, he dressed as an assistant to connect with a Sancet who sent the ball into the box. He could still be the definitive hero in extra time, but Maffeo, in extremis, avoided the winning goal. It was the umpteenth action of the winger, who established himself as a world-class footballer, with an imbalance within the reach of very few in football.
Nico and Athletic were the face, and Mallorca, the cross, the loser of a genuine football final. It was an authentic football day, far from the increasingly commercialized king sport that sells its soul to sheiks. Since the two teams were in the final, the two fans moved heaven and earth to find a ticket and the means to travel, in many cases spending their savings, to be in an event that they considered historic in their hearts.
A part of Mallorcanism went by plane and the rest did not mind traveling for hours by boat to the Valencian coast to continue the route by car. The fact that they lost the previous five finals did not discourage Athletic fans either. There were only 20,698 for each fan, but up to 70,000 Basque fans crossed the peninsula to support the Lions. Seville was dyed for a few hours in white-and-red and crimson. The fan zone of the two teams remained small, the two sites turned into spaces of brotherhood and good vibes, only the idyllic image was broken by four energetic people who led riots. La Cartuja saw football as always, with the two parishes dressed in their respective colors and cheering to their heart’s content. A far cry from what is seen in Saudi Arabia, home of the Spanish Super Cup and living image of disfigured modern football.
