From Quinindé to the world

It is now commonplace to see Willian Pacho’s name among the world’s best centre-backs.

At the age of 24, he has just received his first nomination for the Ballon d’Or award, having helped PSG win 10 titles since his arrival in 2024. During this time, he was also named in the Ligue 1 Team of the Year for two consecutive seasons and became the first Ecuadorian to win the Champions League.

Today, Pacho is at the top of his game. But his journey to get there began a long way from Europe’s major stadiums.

To reach this level – and occupy the prominent position we have come to expect him to hold – the centre-back had to overcome challenges from a very early age.

Pacho was born in Quinindé, a small, remote rural town in the far north of Ecuador.

His father left the family shortly after his birth, and he and his siblings were raised by their mother, who supported the household by juggling several jobs. She ran a food stall, washed neighbours’ clothes by hand and even looked after a small, makeshift livestock farm in the back garden.

Pacho helped out wherever he could. When his mother asked him to, he would feed the pigs. Some neighbours even laughed when they saw him with his arms deep in buckets of rice, doing that heavy work.

‘My mum taught me how to turn leftovers into a feast.’ – Willian Pacho

Every December, the pigs were slaughtered and a huge roast was prepared for the whole community. And no one was left out. All the neighbours received a share.

This tradition left a deep impression on Pacho and became one of the most valuable lessons he learnt from his mother: ‘I remember asking my mother, “How can you feed even those who wouldn’t help feed the community?” And she’d reply, “Don’t let that bother you. Everyone deserves a good slice.’ I’d go and hand over that lovely piece of pork to the very people who’d laughed in my face. My mum had the most generous heart in the world. But I think there was a deeper lesson she was teaching me, you know? We’d turn leftovers into a feast. I’ve carried that with me my whole life.’ (The Players’ Tribune)

Football was also part of that routine. Pacho played football in the street every day after school, but he’d never thought of it as a career. For him, it was just a hobby: ‘I didn’t have the faintest idea what it meant to be a “footballer”. I just played. In Ecuador, back then, you wouldn’t even dare to dream that anyone might pay you to do that.’ (The Players’ Tribune)

But, little by little, what had seemed like nothing more than a game began to take on a whole new meaning.

Playing for Huracán de Quinindé, the local club in his town, Pacho began to catch the eye of the country’s bigger teams with his strength and determination.

The boy who had to leave

In 2017, at the age of 15, he was signed by the youth academy of Independiente del Valle. To get to the club, he had to endure an eight-hour bus journey through the mountains.

It was the first major step in a career that was beginning to take him away from Quinindé and towards new horizons.

At the academy, Pacho ended up becoming friends with Moisés Caicedo, who would later be his team-mate in the Ecuadorian national team. The two shared a room in the club’s accommodation before managing to rent their own flat and split the costs.

Caicedo made it into the first team before Pacho, and the centre-back couldn’t have been happier for his friend: ‘I was really happy for him. That gave me hope that I could do it too.’ (The Players’ Tribune)

That hope, however, would soon be put to the test.

Whilst Pacho was beginning to make his way in football, things at home were getting increasingly difficult. His mother was facing a long battle with cancer, and he was now hours away from his family.

Pacho kept in regular contact with his sisters to find out how she was, but he rarely managed to get home.

In 2019, he finally had the chance to pay a visit. Once again, he faced that long journey through the mountains. Only this time, the road seemed even harder. Seeing his mother, who had always been by his side from the very beginning, now frail and weakened, was too painful to bear.

The debut that changed everything

A few months after that visit, the Independiente del Valle manager called Pacho to tell him the news he’d been waiting for for years: he would finally be making his debut for the first team.

It was the moment he’d been working towards ever since he left Quinindé. But on the night before the match, the excitement gave way to anxiety: ‘I was so nervous I couldn’t sleep. I literally sweated through the whole sheet. All I could think about were the two strikers I’d have to mark, who were in great form. I only managed to get a bit of sleep when the sun was already rising.’ (The Players’ Tribune)

On the morning of his debut, however, Pacho woke up to hundreds of notifications on his mobile.

And there was something odd about them.

They were voice messages and texts from family and friends, but instead of talking about his debut, everyone seemed to be paying tribute to his mother and offering their condolences.

Terrified, Pacho rang his sister to find out what was happening to the woman who had raised them.

She told him it was just a rumour that had spread around town. His mother was fine.

Pacho breathed a sigh of relief.

Confident that she was probably watching the match on television, he took to the pitch to fulfil the dream they both shared. He made a brilliant debut, winning virtually every challenge and helping the team keep a clean sheet.

It was only after the match that the manager and the team psychologist called him over for a chat. His father and brother-in-law were there too.

His mother had died that morning.

Everyone already knew, but they’d decided to keep the news to themselves until after the match so that Pacho could fulfil his dream. They knew that was what his mother would have wanted: ‘I cried with grief, as I’d never cried before. I’ve never felt so alone.’ (The Players’ Tribune)

Still wearing his dirty match kit, Pacho once again made the long journey across the Andes back home.

This time, however, the journey was completely different.

The pain had become almost unbearable. At one of the bus stops, overcome by despair, he even thought of taking his own life: ‘I remember looking into the abyss and simply thinking… Mum, I don’t want to be here without you. In the end, my brother-in-law and my dad realised something was wrong with me. They didn’t even say anything, but from then on, every time we stopped, they’d take me to the edge and hold me back. I thank God for them. I don’t know if I would actually have jumped… But just the thought of it is still far too frightening for me, even today.’ (The Players’ Tribune)

The pain that became strength

Back in Quinindé, Pacho spent a whole week in his mother’s room, crying and letting the memories overwhelm him.

But it was precisely from that period of pain that a new version of the player emerged.

‘Instead of playing with fear, I started playing with hunger. In football, you need that kind of relentless instinct.’ – Willian Pacho

The centre-back regards that moment as a turning point in the way he came to view football.

Finding it difficult to open up to the team psychologist, Pacho found a kind of therapy in sport. And, on the pitch, something changed.

As he himself put it: ‘After her death, something strange happened. I lost all my fear on the pitch. Before, I was a gentler player. I didn’t like physical contact. I didn’t have that instinct to ‘devour the world’. When she died, I was overcome by anger, helplessness and pain. [...] That put everything into perspective for me. Instead of playing with fear, I started playing with hunger. I took on the world. In football, you need that sort of ruthless instinct. I wished it weren’t true, but it is. I took my game to another level at Independiente over the next two years.’ (The Players’ Tribune)

From then on, Pacho was transformed.

Over the next three years at Independiente del Valle, he helped the club win the Copa Libertadores Under-20s in 2020 and the Ecuadorian Championship in 2021 – the first domestic title in the club’s history.

And as his football improved, a new goal began to emerge. Pacho had already left behind the idea that football was just a hobby. Now, he wanted to find out just how far that career could take him.

The European dream hanging by a thread

The next step was Europe.

But when the opportunity finally arose, it all nearly went wrong.

Pacho came very close to signing for Borussia Mönchengladbach, but the deal ultimately fell through at the last minute. In the match following the breakdown of negotiations, the centre-back dislocated both shoulders. Doctors even said he could be sidelined for up to a year.

After everything he’d already been through, it seemed like yet another setback.

Pacho, however, did not give up.

In early 2022, the opportunity he had been waiting for finally arose: Royal Antwerp, from Belgium, signed him.

And, once again, he had to fight for his place.

After being given few opportunities in his first season, Pacho secured his place in the starting line-up in his second. In 2023, he helped the club win both the Belgian Cup and the Belgian League, ending a 66-year drought without a league title.

That boy who once played football on the streets of Quinindé was now lifting trophies in Europe.

And there was still more to come.

Reaching the top

After just one season at Eintracht Frankfurt in Germany – a period during which he was among the team’s best players in terms of both successful tackles and accurate passes – the centre-back signed for PSG in August 2024.

From then on, what had once seemed a distant dream became a reality.

Today, Pacho is one of the team’s most important players and is firmly established among the world’s best defenders. His collection of trophies continues to grow.

Behind every achievement and every new accolade, however, lies the memory of the person who made it all possible: his mother.

The woman who taught him to turn leftovers into a feast. The woman who taught him to share, to move forward and never to forget where he came from. It was with these lessons that Pacho left a small rural town in Ecuador, faced difficulties, losses and disappointments, and reached the pinnacle of world football.

He carries her memory with him wherever he goes.

That is why he wears the number 51 – the age his mother was when she died.

As he himself explains: “Wearing this number reminds me that she is always with me. I feel her presence on the pitch, and that gives me the strength to carry on. In every minute of every match, even in the tough moments, I feel that I have her support.” (UEFA)

From Quinindé to the very top of world football, Pacho has turned pain into strength, obstacles into achievements and setbacks into celebrations – just as his mother taught him.