Manchester City striker and arrogant-savant, Mario Balotelli has been in the news rather a lot over the past week. Some of the stories were laughable, some of them were bizarre, but one story – the big one, will be playing on City fans minds as they weigh up the value of their 20 year-old-striker.
First there was that video of him struggling to put on a bib. I’m not going to post the video because laughing at other peoples failure to do simple tasks is a particularly lazy form of schadenfreude and I know just how many times I’ve absent-mindedly try to force my head through the sleeve-hole of a t-shirt. The whole event cued general bewilderment in the ESPN studio and a lot of bad jokes from the pundits (“Mario Bibitelli”, “He’s got Bibitus”).
Then there was the strange story that emanated around the time of the first-leg between Manchester City and Dynamo Kiev, that Balotelli is allergic to grass – or at least to the special radio-active form of grass that grows in Russia. The less said about that story, the better I think.
As I noted before, it’s Balotelli’s red card from Thursday night’s Europa League clash that will play longest on the minds of the fans. Balotelli went in much too high on Dynamo Kiev’s Goron Popov planting his studs into the defender’s torso. Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini has since called Balotelli ‘stupid’ and hinted that he will think twice before playing him in today’s game with Chelsea.
Balotelli’s response has been, thankfully, one of humility. “I am very sorry to my team-mates in particular that I got sent off so early in such an important game,” he told the Press “I never tried to make contact with Popov and I certainly didn’t want to hurt him. In retrospect, however, the tackle was poor. I should have showed more consideration but I was so involved in the game”.
Manchester City fans may be angry. His bad tackle ensured that City had virtually no chance of proceeding to the next round of the Europa League (given that they were trailing to Kiev by a two goal aggregate deficit). The most important thing, however, is that he knows he has done wrong and is ready to make amends and move on.
He may have cost City progression in the Europa League, but who’s to say that a happy, hungry Balotelli won’t bring future success to the Blues – perhaps on an even grander scale? Like so many young talents, he has something of a petulant side to him (I’m thinking of Wayne Rooney, Jack Wilshere, etc) – a characteristic that is somewhat more forgivable when you’re a youngster with as much talent as Balotelli.
It’s a consequence of his arrogance and all-invasive bravado that it’s easy to forget that he is just 20 years-old. He made a mistake on a big stage and is paying for it. It’s time to get back behind our man and hope he guides City to success in the future.
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what’s funny is that if City goes on to finish in the top 4 and get into the Champions League next year, we may owe our gratitude to Mario for “helping” to lessen the amount of games we must play.