“Nico Williams has taken an incredible step this year.”

Imanol de la Sota knows many of the members of Athletic’s first team well, having spent four and a half years at Lezama split into two stages: first as coach of the Juvenil de Honor from 2015 to 2017, then as Echeverría’s right-hand man at Baskonia, with a stint at Éibar in between both periods before returning to the red-and-white factory from 2019 to 2021, again starting two seasons as youth coach before spending time at Bilbao Athletic.

Unai Gomez, Nico Williams, Nico Serrano, Rincon, Nolascoan, Inigo Vicente, Guia… have all passed through his hands.

I’ve worked on a lot of things with Vivian (I got second place in Baskonia). Even in my first stage I’ve worked mixed with Unai Simon, Gruseta, Sunset… In the 2000 generation I was second in the cadets. I have very good relationships with a lot of people.

Did you feel like Nico Williams was as wild as we see him now?

I caught him in his first year in youth and that was his first big step, he made a physical change and we started to see the level he can have. His growth is shown in what happened this year. He was already very visual, very impressive, but his growth is in influencing the game with assists and goals and this year he took an incredible step in that regard and became a top player at state level. Thus, continuing globally. The first place he changed was in that youth team, where he didn’t have as much impact and Nico Serrano had more goals and even assists, but he is a very visual player. Now he is producing numbers, goals and assists, and becoming who he was meant to be.