The Fab Four get a makeover and its Balo on the Hill

My oh my, you could bring Mario Balotelli to meet your mother if you’re a girl or if you are somewhere over the rainbow. The man was a perfect gentleman on the pitch and deserves kudos for his conduct if not his lack of scoring. He could have had three in the latter department but then he’s probably been neutered by 3,100,000 different behaviour clauses and a cocktail of psychotropics. Paolo Bandini writes about Balotelli as someone turned into a feral child a la Nell, in this case racism. He was not guided by cultural references we take for granted, i.e., the Flintstones, Tony Danza, Lego, chicken tikka masala, and World of Warcraft that have shaped us into, Wall St fraudsters, NSA spymasters, US warmongers, Vladimir Putin, ISIL barbarians, and syrupy sweet Mother Teresa’s.

Liverpool inevitably humiliated Spurs, now, 12-0 in the goalscoring department the last three games. Raheem Sterling twisted and turned faster than a drill bit, leaving Spurs nauseated in his wake. He scored the opening goal after Jordan Henderson’s transformative vision yielded a side splitting pass. Eric Dier, the newly crowned Spurs darling got a proper introduction to the league, clumsily pulling Joe Allen back in the box (Joe Allen!), and penalized by a spot kick. Was it going to be Balotelli? The Manolo Blahnik of PKs. No, Gerrard t’was. And the humiliation was complete with Alberto Moreno bundling aside Andros Townsend and turning on the jets for about 90 yards to outrun everyone called Eric, Jan, Yunous, and Etienne, to sweep his shot majestically past Hugo Lloris.

For those Super Mario acolytes: