Quite the opposite. Whenever he can, he speaks loud and clear and today he did it again to refer to the Spanish Super Cup that will be played starting next week in Saudi Arabia. “Playing in Arabia is shit, speaking badly,” said the Athletic captain. In his opinion, “taking a competition that is national to another country is not easy for fans and does not facilitate this movement. In the end, we, as a social mass, seem to play away from home and if it were here, we know all the athleticzales that they would accompany us,” he laments.
Furthermore, personally speaking, “In the next few days I am going to be a father and having to leave my wife and son here is a chore,” says the eldest of the Williams brothers, aware, of course, that “they are part of the job.” Despite everything, he wanted to make it clear that he is “at the disposal of the club” and that he will try to “do the best possible in the Super Cup.”
The red and white team will play the first semi-final of the Super Cup on Wednesday, January 7 in Jeddah against FC Barcelona and if they beat the Barça team, they will play the final on Sunday the 11th against the winner of Real Madrid-Atlético de Madrid scheduled for Thursday the 8th. Despite his opinion of playing the Super Cup so far from home, Iñaki Williams recognizes that “it is always special to be able to compete for a title.” “We are among the four best. We are not the favorite. We know very well what we have to do, but it is not going to be easy,”
The captain of the red and white team has always had very good performances against the Blaugranas. In fact, he has already scored seven goals against the team blaugrana. He scored in that 2021 Super Cup, but also in the 2015 Cup final, in the quarterfinals of the KO competition in 2020 and in 2024, in which Athletic ended up being champion, he scored a goal for them fresh from the African Cup that same afternoon.
Iñaki Williams knows that he is not going through his best moment, and that is why he asks the new year for “health and goals.” “Goals are loves. What the people at the top need is to be able to help the team by scoring goals. We are a team that creates many chances and the fact that the points have not come is very important to the players at the top who have not been at our highest level,” he is honest. Thus, the wish for 2026 is that “I can return to my primeI can help my team to be able to give assists, to score, especially goals,” he wishes. In addition to goals, he asks for health because “after so long without injury, these last two months have been difficult personally. The team has not shined either and I hope we can return to the path of triumph,” he aspires.
Support for Valverde
In his appearance, Iñaki Williams also stood up for Ernesto Valverde, who has also not escaped criticism for his team’s poor results. “It is difficult for me to understand why he is being criticized. The team is 100% for him. In the end, he was the coach who made us win a title 40 years later and the one who qualified us for the Champions League. His endorsement speaks for itself, for everything he has achieved at the club and I think it would not be fair because of this slump we are going through,” he analyzes. In this sense, he maintains that “it is important for the youngest that the reality is this, that sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to change. We are a team that has a lot of ambition and we hope that in 2026 we can fly high.”
