(Football news) The Athletic Bilbao striker has not missed a single La Liga game since April 2016 and played his 203 league matches in a row to beat the previous record which was held by former Real Sociedad player Juan Larrañaga. Five coaches have come and gone in the Athletic dugout but one thing remained ever present was his name on the team sheet.
The gravity of this record sometimes will go unnoticed but it's truly an amazing feat especially in modern day football where the sport is much more physical, with high intensity football played day in day out and also the amount of fixtures an average footballer plays becomes very difficult to stay fit. The centre forward has been with Bilbao since the youth level and was promoted to the first team in 2014, since then he has been an integral part of the squad. Williams in 2019 signed a contract extension with Bilbao till 2028, a nine year renewal which is the most in the club's history. In 242 appearances in the La Liga he has scored 48 goals and provided 33 assists for Athletic Bilbao.
His streak of games started off against Atletico Madrid on 20th April 2016 when subsequently he was making a comeback after a long term injury, which had kept him out for the majority of the 2015/16 La Liga season. After playing the final 5 matches of the season he went on to play all 38 games from the 2016/17 season till now. He was first spotted by former Barcelona coach Ernesto Vaverde who handed out his debut against Cordoba aged just 20, later on he went to become the clubs talisman with Aritz Aduriz forming a deadly partnership with him. Inaki Williams biggest attribute to his game is his pace and the fact that he is keeping himself injury free in such a demanding sport is quite a remarkable feat.
Athletic's coach Marcelino Garcia Toral spoke about Inaki and said: "Inaki Williams is such an important player for us. He has stand-out abilities compared to other players. He is very quick, he stretches the opposition defence, he gets stuck in. Like any striker, he goes through more and less prolific spells, but his attitude is always incredible. His performance is excellent and he will improve because he wants to. He has been in the first team for many years and yet he is only 26 so as a striker he is moving into his peak years. Together with his teammates, we think he’ll be a cornerstone of this club for many years to come,"
While speaking about his childhood and wanting to add to Athletics legacy Inaki said, "I miss those days. I was very happy. The only responsibility we had was going to school and then playing football. It was a beautiful time, I had come to Lezama to watch training sessions with my godfather. Then we would go to the park to play football. I also spent a lot of time playing football with my brother Nico. Summers of endless football, my mother used to shout at us on the street to get us to come back home. You always dream of winning a title with Athletic. You see images of when Athletic won the league, the team out on La Gabarra, I wasn’t even born back then! You hear (Jose Angel Iribar) talking about those times and you get goosebumps. Now we are in with a chance of winning two trophies, and an opportunity to leave our mark. We all dream of making Athletic champions again, it's all we want,"
