Mario Balotelli, Love him or hate him he's an immense footballing talent who's never far from both the front and back pages of the papers. At the tender age of 21 he is undoubtedly one of the most talented up and coming footballers on the planet, however his extrovert character and off-field antics often lead to problems.
Super Mario has Pace, Power & Technical ability in abundance. These abilities were shown against Manchester United as he grabbed himself the opening 2 goals in Manchester Citys 6-1 demolition of Manchester United. The now famous celebration following the opening goal (pictured above) was in reference to Mad Mario and his friends setting fire to his bathroom in his £3 Million luxury home. The fire brigade were called at 1am on Saturday morning and the substantial blaze was reported to be caused by Mad Mario and his friends lighting fireworks and firing them from his bathroom window. Following the incident Mario became an ambassador for firework safety, giving his full backing to the Treacle campaign for firework safety. You just can't make this stuff up!
This is just one of numerous incidents outside of football that has put Mario in the spotlight, others include; wearing an AC Milan jersey on Italian TV whilst under contract with Inter Milan, driving into a woman's prison in Italy, throwing darts at youth team players, notching up £10,000 in parking fines, crashing his Audi R8 and when asked at the scene by the police why he had £5,000 in his back pocket he responded with "Because I am rich", being involved in training ground incidents with Jerome Boateng, Vincent Kompany and Micah Richards and who can forget failing to put on a bib in a pre-match warm up against Dynamo Kiev.
So with all the attitude, baggage and hype is Balotelli worth persevering with? Roberto Mancini must of asked this question a fair few times in the past couple of years. But with 11 goals in 15 games in all competitions this season and with Sergio Aguero and Edin Dzeko both currently out of form, Mario is in my opinion is worth persevering with and is key to Manchester City's title bid this season.
Will he grow up and aim to achieve a quieter lifestyle? Probably not. But he is a journalists dream and whenever I read a story about Mario Balotelli nine times out of ten it puts a smile on my face. Question is if you were the Manchester City manager would he make your first team XI or is he simply too much of a risk?
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