A LALIGA icon claims Inaki Williams struggles' with the Ghana national team can be attributed to being brought up through the Athletic Bilabo system.
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Raul Garcia has enjoyed an illustrious career in the Spanish topflight playing for some of the division's biggest sides. The recently retired forward has the third most appearances in LALIGA history, won the league during the 2013/14 campaign, and has won the Copa del Rey as well as the Supercopa de Espana on two occasions each.
Most of his trophies were won while playing for Atletico Madrid, who are set to face Real Madrid this weekend in the 231st edition of Madrid Derby, but the ex-Spain international spent most of his career playing with Athletic Bilbao.
The Zizur Mayor born forward spent nine years at San Memes before calling time on his career and during that time he played with some top players. One of them is Inaki Williams, the teammate Garcia has played more games with than anybody else in his career.
While Williams can be regarded as an all-time great in the Basque region, he has struggled to establish his legend with the Black Stars. The 30-year-old first played for the four-time African champions in 2022, but in the 17 caps that he has accumulated thus far, he only has one goal.
Only players that are born in the Basque region are allowed to play for Lehoiak, so in an exclusive LALIGA press conference with Garcia, Soccer Laduma quizzed Williams' former teammate on whether the familiarity of playing with players he's know for most of his life can be a disadvantage when he plays for the west African giants.
"It is true that Inaki has not reached his desired level when he plays for Ghana," Garcia started off by saying.
"This is, however, no excuse of course, but normally for these matches you have to travel long hours and this is not ideal preparation for good performances for a player, but he wants to do things the right way and wants to be there.
"Obviously the circumstance of having brand new colleagues, and not really being adapted to the team doesn't make the situation any easier. As you say, he's playing in the north of Spain and we've all known each other for many years and this makes it easier to coordinate.
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"But I'm sure that Inaki will achieve wonderful results and he is aware of the fact that he has to forge ahead and I am sure he will find his form in the team soon enough."