Picture Credit: Twitter
One of the most popular football leagues in the world, La Liga has witnessed a record broken on 17 April. The Athletic Bilbao forward Inaki Williams has gone on to feature for six years without missing a single LaLiga fixture. He has played 227 LaLiga matches in this pursuit, starting 189 of those games.
In October last year, he broke the record for the highest number of uninterrupted fixtures, which was held by Juanan Larranaga of Real Sociedad, who featured in 202 fixtures between 1986 and 1992.
This whole time period accounts for a total of 2,191 days without skipping a single LaLiga game. He passed this milestone after getting named among starting players of Athletic Club against their fixture against Celta Vigo. However, the striker could not do well enough, and the team lost the fixture 2-0.
Williams is the only second black footballer to play for Athletic, after Jonas Ramalho, and has extended his contract till 2028. He is all set for creating a record that might be quite difficult to beat in the future as well.
Williams has featured in a single appearance for Spain at the senior level in 2016 against Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The fans have been sharing the tweets of him being never suspended, never injured, and never left out. They think that it is quite incredible for Williams to be never injured throughout his career when the number of matches is on an increasing trajectory and rest times are decreasing. Williams was born in Spain and has parents from Ghana, and the fans are pleading with him to join the Ghana team for the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar.
On being asked about playing for Ghana, Williams had said, "I’m grateful to where I grew and became who I am. My parents are from Accra and I really enjoy going. But I wasn’t born or raised there, my culture’s here, and there are players for whom it would mean more. I don’t think it would be right to take the place of someone who really deserves to go and feels Ghana 100%."