In the second of a series looking at some of the lesser known footballing families of world football, Andy Edgeworth looks at the brothers who literally embody a nation’s football.
The tragedy of the footballing brothers of La Ceiba
There are many nations across the globe who still have yet to produce a household name of the global stage of world football.
Yet one such nation has a whole family full of them – all brothers who would put their country on the map.
And yet it would all end so tragically for a talented family who dared to better themselves and the game for their country.
The most famous of five footballing brothers, Wilson Palacios is fondly remembered as a combative central midfielder who made his name in England with Wigan Athletic, Tottenham Hotspur and Stoke City.
His older brothers Milton (who played his entire career in Honduras) and Jerry (who had spells in China and Spain with Real Sociedad) also played professional football and younger brother Johnny still plays in Honduras.
The family have legendary status in the small Central American nation of Honduras where the family all grew up in the port city of La Ceiba.
In fact, Wilson, Jerry and Johnny all represented their nation at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa – only the second time Honduras had reached the finals (since 1982). Wilson and Jerry went on to play at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
The fifth brother of the Palacios family, Edwin, was forging a promising career before tragedy struck.
It was in 2007, while Wilson was playing for Birmingham City, that Edwin was kidnapped from his family home in Honduras by an armed gang.
Despite paying a £125,000 ransom, Edwin was kept hostage before eventually being found dead in May 2009 in the municipality of El Paraíso. Nobody has yet been caught in connection with the murder.
Sadly it was all too much for Wilson (now 33) who has not played since leaving Miami in the second tier of American football in 2016. It seems such a sad end for a family who put Honduras on the sporting map.
