Why always me? Well, Mario, you set your house on fire with fireworks, threw darts at youth team players, crashed your car on the way to training and wore a bib back to front because you could not work it out. Balotelli was not evil. He was chaos in football boots, and nobody could predict him.
He played from 2007 to 2024 for Lumezzane, Inter Milan, Manchester City, AC Milan, Liverpool, Nice, Marseille, Brescia, Monza, Adana Demirspor, Sion and Genoa. Most of the famous stories come from Manchester.
- He let off fireworks inside his house in Manchester and set the bathroom alight.
- From the first-team balcony at Manchester City, he threw darts at youth team players.
- After scoring he lifted his shirt to show the words "Why always me?", and the picture went round the world.
- He stamped on the head of Tottenham's Scott Parker.
- He crashed his Maserati. When police asked why he had £25,000 in cash in the car, he said: "Because I am rich."
Was Balotelli a villain or an entertainer?
More the second. Every day with Mario was an adventure, and his teammates, managers and fans never knew what was coming. He had the talent to be the best striker in the world, but his mind was usually somewhere else. Probably in a fireworks shop.
Tomorrow: number 20.
