Nico Williams is better than his stats
...at least his goalscoring ones. Someone's gotta drop the bag.
The referee blows the whistle and the second half begins. Spain and England have been going blow for blow; Rodri, the former’s anchor and talisman, has been removed through injury. A European Championship hangs in the balance.
Then something happens that symbolises Spain’s new blood. A midfield rotation helps Lamine Yamal, recently seventeen, receive in space and cut inside; he draws two defenders towards him. Decoy runs from Alvaro Morata and Dani Olmo create space and Yamal switches the ball to the opposite flank, where Nico Williams crashes towards it. He strikes cleanly across the face of the goal with his weaker left foot, and Spain take the lead.
At that moment, the world was Nico’s sandbox. A transfer saga with Barcelona followed Spain’s victory and his €60 million release clause was the talk of Europe. But Williams chose to stay at Athletic, where the stage was set for a follow-up to a season in which he’d racked 16 goals and assists in the league.
A year later, the optimism around Williams’ potential has waned. Despite Athletic finishing 4th and qualifying for the Champions League, Williams racked up just five goals and five assists. To some, this is his growth stagnating. And for a player deemed to be ‘raw’ or ‘unfinished’ with low ‘end product’, his reported €20-million-a-year salary demands are tough to swallow.
But then he catches fire for Spain again, and popular interest renews. The international stage seems the only one big enough to challenge the sheer narrative power of those goal numbers.
So the question for us is simple: is Williams a better player than his goalscoring stats suggest? Let's investigate.
