The average soccer fan associates Spain with one thing: possession. 

From 2008 to 2012, the Spanish men’s national team won three straight international tournaments with perhaps the finest collection of midfield players ever assembled, tiki-taka-ing their way around opponents so effectively they hardly needed a striker. 

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Even as recently as the 2021 UEFA European Football Championship, the Luis Enrique-led Spain team made it to the semifinals largely on the back of exceptional possession play. FC Barcelona’s young midfielder Pedro “Pedri” González López was really the star of that team, not any striker. Enrique started Dani Olmo as the nominal striker in that squad, who’s really an attacking midfielder. 

But Spain can no longer rely on possession and superior midfielders alone, as the 2022 World Cup proved. In that tournament, Spain limped through Group E in second place behind Japan, earning just four points. They faced Morocco in the Round of 16, losing to the eventual semi-finalists on penalties. By Spanish standards, the World Cup was a disaster. 

In that competition, however, Spain fans may have witnessed a glimpse of their future. 21-year-old winger Nico Williams made four appearances in Qatar, but what’s really caught the eye are his performances for Athletic Club in Bilbao. 

For those who don’t tune into La Liga outside of Real Madrid C.F. and Barcelona, Athletic has a strict policy that only allows players from Spain’s Basque region, a collection of provinces that have historically had their own language and culture. 

Despite the club’s restricted player pool, it has been remarkably consistent and successful. Only three teams have never been relegated from La Liga. The first two you can probably guess with ease: Real Madrid and Barcelona. The third? Yep, it’s Athletic.

The Basque club has had a quietly excellent 2023-24 season thus far. After eighth-, eighth- and tenth-place finishes in the previous three seasons, respectively, Athletic currently finds itself in third, among the Champions League qualification places. Admittedly, the two teams behind Athletic, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, have games in hand and could knock Athletic down to fifth if they both win, but to even be in the Champions League conversation halfway through the season is a victory for Athletic. 

One could argue that Williams has been Athletic’s most important player so far this season. Nico, that is, because his older brother, Iñaki, also plays for Athletic. In fact, few players have contributed more for Athletic over the past decade than the elder Williams, who’s made 326 La Liga appearances, scoring 72 goals and providing 38 assists. 

But at this stage of their careers, Nico is undoubtedly the hotter prospect. By appearing for Spain, he’s already on his way to surpassing Iñaki at the international level. While the two brothers were born in Spain, their parents are from Ghana, making them eligible to compete for either national team. Iñaki made one appearance for Spain in a friendly against Bosnia and Herzegovina, but eventually decided to play for Ghana after La Roja hadn’t called on him for several years. 

At the club level, while Iñaki has served as a cornerstone for Athletic, Nico’s potential may lay beyond Bilbao, potentially at one of Premier League’s Big Six (or seven, including Newcastle), Real Madrid or Barcelona.

The younger Williams has scored three goals and assisted five in La Liga play this season — solid numbers, for sure, but they don’t do justice to his greatest talent: dribbling. When Williams starts running with the ball, he’s nigh impossible to stop. Per FBref’s stats-keeping, Williams sits in the 94th and 95th percentiles for progressive carries (5.84 per 90 minutes) and successful take-ons (3.70 per 90), respectively. 

Just visualize the latter number for a moment. Between three and four times in your typical Athletic match, Williams goes one-on-one with a defender and beats them. It’s a tremendous asset for any attack and outpaces the same stats for other renowned dribblers, like A.C. Milan’s Rafael Leão or Brighton’s Kaoru Mitoma, who even wrote a university thesis on dribbling before becoming a Premier League star. 

Most importantly, Williams can already turn those dribbles into goal-scoring opportunities. FBref also tracks a stat called shot-creating actions, which counts any dribble, pass or foul that leads to a shot. Williams averages 4.72 of them per 90, which places him in the 77th percentile among positional peers. For reference, that’s more than any player on Barcelona or Real Madrid, except for Raphinha and Luka Modric, and Williams has completed more 90s than either player this season. 

He’s admittedly not the finished product. Williams hasn’t proven a particularly incisive passer (12th percentile for progressive passes per 90), and his future employer would want him to add more goals to his game. 

But that’s also what makes him an exciting prospect. He’s already a top-class winger and has been earmarked as a future stalwart of the Spanish national team. 

With a little more molding, Williams could skyrocket to the top.