{"id":1207855,"date":"2022-09-20T14:28:18","date_gmt":"2022-09-20T14:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/09\/20\/nico-williams-call-up-is-not-to-stop-him-from-playing-for-ghana\/"},"modified":"2022-09-20T14:28:18","modified_gmt":"2022-09-20T14:28:18","slug":"nico-williams-call-up-is-not-to-stop-him-from-playing-for-ghana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/09\/20\/nico-williams-call-up-is-not-to-stop-him-from-playing-for-ghana\/","title":{"rendered":"Nico Williams&#8217; call-up is not to stop him from playing for Ghana"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\">\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"670\" height=\"424\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/3954605-panoramic_PANOBILBBARC21082021_040.jpg\"   alt=\"Nico Williams\" title=\"Nico Williams\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nico Williams<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Spain head coach, Luis Enrique, has opened up on the reason why Nico Williams has been handed a senior call-up ahead of the UEFA Nations League games.<\/p>\n<p>The promising forward has been on the radar of the Ghana Football Association [GFA] for years and Ghanaians were hoping he follows the footsteps of his senior brother, Inaki Williams who has switched nationality to play for Ghana.<\/p>\n<p>Inaki played for La Roja in 2016 after representing Spain\u2019s U-18 and U-21 teams before finally agreeing to play for the Black Stars.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview ahead of the friendlies, Enrique revealed his decision to call up Nico while rejecting claims of trying to block a possible move to switch to Ghana, the Black Stars.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not doing this to stop from him going with Ghana; he\u2019s young and a very interesting player,\u201d he said as quoted by British newspaper, The Guardian.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s playing more often with Athletic now. He\u2019s progressing wonderfully. I like him enormously. We\u2019ve had him in the junior squad and have been following him for a long time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI reckon the family will be delighted: imagine the party if they both go to the World Cup. And they reach the final, well, that would be the absolute business.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Both Inaki and Nico scored for the first time in a game over the weekend when Athletic Bilbao defeated Rayo Vallecano in the Spanish La Liga.<\/p>\n<p>            <!--  [embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=videoseries[\/embed]<!--\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>--><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"HI1Tpd-2iWo\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Bawku Shootings: Monday night assault k!lls 5 persons and destroys tens of houses (20-9-22)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HI1Tpd-2iWo?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nico Williams Spain head coach, Luis Enrique, has opened up on the reason why Nico Williams has been handed a senior call-up ahead of the UEFA Nations League games. The promising forward has been on the radar of the Ghana Football Association [GFA] for years and Ghanaians were hoping he follows the footsteps of his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1149214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[14112,85,20444,3160,534,4305],"class_list":["post-1207855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-callup","tag-ghana","tag-nico","tag-playing","tag-stop","tag-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1207855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1207855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1207855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1207855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}