Williams brothers in World Cup with different teams

Iñaki and Nico Williams

Brothers, teammates and, now, World Cup rivals, writes AP. Athletic Bilbao forwards, Iñaki and Nico Williams, are set to become the latest brothers to play for different countries in a World Cup.

Iñaki Williams was selected by Ghana, yesterday, and his younger brother, Nico, Williams had been picked by Spain last week. They will be repeating the feat of the Boateng brothers, who played for different nations in 2010 in South Africa and in 2014 in Brazil. Jerome Boateng was a central defender with Germany, while the older Kevin-Prince Boateng was an attacking midfielder with Ghana.

The Boatengs, who played against each other in both tournaments, were born to a Ghanaian father and were raised by separate mothers in Germany. The Williams brothers were born in Spain from Ghanaian parents, who made the long journey to Europe looking for a better life.

To make it to Spain, they had to ride on the back of a crowded truck and walk barefoot through the Sahara desert, according to Iñaki Williams. His mother was already pregnant with him when the couple was detained while trying to enter Spain. They eventually received political asylum after taking advice from a charity worker who told them to say they had fled a civil war in Liberia.

The couple moved to the Basque Country region where both boys were born. It didn’t take long before Iñaki Williams, now 28, joined the youth academy of first-division club Athletic. Nico, now 20, eventually did the same.

“I always say that everything we do is for our parents, for everything that they did for us,” Iñaki Williams told the Spanish daily Marca. “It’s like being able to somehow give it back to them for their sacrifice, to let them see their kids fulfil their dreams.”

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