Mario Balotelli: Always Me

There are so many reasons to be fascinated by Mario Balotelli. Until recently, so few of them involved football.

Bought by Manchester City for a huge price tag, the Italian teenager arrived with a reputation of exceptional talent, ridiculous temper and a tendency to piss people off. Within a month of arriving, he had pretty much summed this up by scoring three brilliant goals, getting sent off for kicking an opponent, and crashing a £120,000 sports car.

The rest of the season followed a similar pattern, leaving observers to express a mix of anger, amusement, or genuine concern for the guy's sanity. Crucially, however, the on-field form was not good enough for most to tolerate it. After a high-profile bust up with the manager during the summer, involving a back-heel and an open goal, he seemed almost certain to vanish from the Man City picture.

Not any more.

Balotelli's fortunes, however, are not down to a change in lifestyle. In recent months he has, among other things:
Set his house on fire with fireworks
Got caught up in a money laundering case after visiting the Neapolitan mafia
Given £1000 to a homeless
Driven a young fan to school to confront a kid that was bullying him
Thrown a dart at a City youth team player
Failed to put on a bib

Is he a footballer, or Mr Toad from Wind in the Willows? Perhaps he doesn't even know.

As a professional, the only possible way to justify this kind of exuberance is to show some pretty terrific form. The the kind of form that Balotelli has displayed this season. Six goals in seven games, no red cards, and with today's performance in today's thrashing of Man Utd, the ability to play the role of match-winner on the big occasion too. At only 21, he is vastly ahead of most players in his age bracket, and already there are very few centre forwards of his ability in world football.

On scoring his first goal today, he revealed a t-shirt printed with the words 'Why always me?' The answer is, of course, that no other Premier League player would print their own t-shirt asking such a question in the first place.

However, the exciting development in Balotelli's career is that stunts such as these are becoming an amusing side show, rather than the main attraction. Slowly but surely it appears that, after 18 months, Mario Balotelli and the english game are finding a mutual love for one another. Which makes for a very bright and prosperous future indeed. Unless you're a United fan.