The latest L’Uomo Vogue has Mario Balotelli featured on the cover and a candid and revealing interview with the City star that doesn’t quite give the lie to a grumpy, immature, prankster. Yes, he did total his £100,000 Audi the next day, set off firecrackers in his bathroom causing major damage, got into a training ground spat with Micah Richards, and earned Mancini’s disapproval smoking cigarettes. And that is just a partial list of his transgressions.
He does nothing to dispel that image but there are moments of introspection which paint a more complex picture. Some of it comes from growing up as an adopted child of Ghanian origin in Italy and his experiences moulded from the more overt racism seen in that country’s football grounds.
The Daily Mirror has excerpted some of that interview. If you must know he’s dating a Sophia Loren look alike.
The quintessential damned if you do, damned if you don’t quandary of a man who is constantly misunderstood summed up by:
“If I buy a Fiat Uno, I’ll read that for a man like me a Ferrari was more suitable. If instead I buy a Ferrari, they’ll write that I should have kept my feet on the ground and bought a Fiat.”
Maybe that enigmatic quality and his undoubted genius is what keeps it all ticking. And he has many peers who seek him out. David Beckham asked Balotelli to sign a Man City jersey for his son although what he did after seems to be more noseworthy.
Despite many reports of Balotelli being unsettled at City and linked with Milan, the club he’s grown up admiring, the striker came up with his strongest statement that he intends to stay put. If his knee holds up, he could make City fans a very happy lot.