A New Year resolution defines as a commitment that a person makes to complete a set of goals or break certain habits, for the better. Since Mario Balotelli joined Manchester City, you could argue that, as a player, he’s slowly breaking habits that had hounded his career to date. However, while he is improving his attitude and performance on-the-pitch, his off-the-pitch antics continue to intrigue, interest and even infuriate everyone.
Making a New Year’s resolution, should prove itself as beneficial to the person making the commitment. It is a goal, or a set of goals, that should, over the forthcoming year, improve a person’s worth and accomplish something worthwhile. Fernando Torres and Andy Carroll probably share similar New Year’s resolutions, to score goals more frequently, and Steve Kean’s is probably something to do with continual deceitfulness throughout the entire year, in what can only be described as lawful extortion. By committing to a New Year’s resolution, a person is acknowledging the need for new traits in new beginnings.
It comes after reflection upon their wrongdoings over the previous year and culminates in seeking forgiveness and it seems that Mario Balotelli has already started, or at least the air of comical mystery around him has, to seek that forgiveness. His habits, that Mancini advises he should change, “I hope the New Year can bring a different way for him,” have included, among many other happenings, driving into an all-female prison in his Mercedes Coupe with his 17-year old brother because they were, “especially curious at the fact it was a women’s prison,” handing £1000 to a homeless man as he left a casino and exclaiming, when asked by police why he had £5000 in £20 notes in his pocket, “because I can. I’m rich.” Some may see this, including myself, as a rich man’s lighthearted ways, but The Guardian label it as “self- aggrandising acts of vulgarity.”
What the writer of the article entitled, “Mario Balotelli gives Britain a new buffoon” in which he states that the Italian’s behaviour makes Wayne Rooney seem parochial, fails to do, among slamming the Manchester City striker as a “real idiot’s idiot,” is credit him for the good things he has done off-the-pitch, or attempt to search for some logic in his lightheartedness. Mario Balotelli was born in Sicily to a Ghanaian couple and as an infant, he suffered a serious illness that is fatal to most, having to undergo a series of operations on his intestines. This was all before he had reached the age of 2.
Then, aged 3, social workers in Brescia, where he was being raised, advised that the young Ghanian Italian should be fostered, as they struggled to raise a young Mario in a cramped home. From 3-years old, Balotelli was brought up by a white Italian couple, who he now, after growing apart from his biological parents, calls mamma e papà.
Now, as a professional footballer, playing for mega-rich Manchester City, he is aware that he has a, “a responsibility as a role model to children,” before adding, “I try to fulfil that.” A far cry from the unsurprisingly unnamed blogger that described Balotelli as the new “idiot laureate.” Balotelli is giving back.