Ghanaian mother María Williams and her Spain star son Nico have drawn global attention.

She wore her son’s 2026 FIFA World Cup medal in the stands at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, US, amid scenes of celebration.

When Spain were crowned world champions, the first person winger Nico Williams ran to wasn’t a teammate.

It was his mum, María. She was in the stands in a Spain shirt. Nico handed the medal to her. “We did it,” she said in Spanish and in her native Ghanaian dialect.

For Nico’s mother, it wasn’t just his win or Spain’s. It was hers too.

The story behind Nico’s family is extraordinary. His parents, María and Félix, crossed the Sahara Desert partly on foot to get to Spain from Ghana.

They were detained in Melilla, a Spanish city on the coast of North Africa. María was pregnant with Nico’s older brother, Iñaki, at the time.

People told them to go back. But they didn’t. They were later granted asylum and landed in Pamplona, a city in northern Spain, with nothing but each other and hope. 

Raising stars

Iñaki was born soon after. That was in the 1990s. Then María and Félix were blessed with Nico in 2002. 

Life was tight. But the house was always full of football. Nico and Iñaki were on the streets, in the park, anywhere with a ball. Then Athletic Bilbao came calling first for Iñaki, then for Nico. 

Like his brother, Nico wasn’t an overnight star. He worked relentlessly.

That same “keep going” his parents had in the desert showed up every time he took on a fullback. 

As for their national teams, the two brothers took different paths.

Iñaki chose Ghana in 2022 to honour their parents’ roots. Nico opted for Spain, his country of birth, in 2021, debuted in 2022, and won Euro 2024. 

Different flags, same family, same struggle and rise to stardom. From a desert journey, to a detention centre, to lifting a global trophy.

So, observers say it made sense that Nico looked for his mum first when Spain lifted the World Cup after beating Argentina 1-0 in the final on 19 July.