Mario Balotelli (45) heads toward goal in a Manchester City versus Fulham FC game. Photo credit: ZawTowers
Manchester City maintained their three-point lead over title (and cross-town) rivals Manchester United yesterday thanks to a last-gasp penalty from substitute Mario Balotelli. But rather than the back pages being all about City’s potentially crucial 3-2 win over third-placed Tottenham, Balotelli’s apparent stamp on Scott Parker’s head has hogged the headlines and reopened the debate about whether the supremely gifted yet wildly eccentric Balotelli can fire City to glory. The sports commentariat are furiously questioning whether Mancini will be able to tame Balotelli or if his bad behavior will derail City’s title bid.
Referee Howard Webb missed the incident but, given the furore in the press, it is highly likely the Football Association will take retrospective action and ban Balotelli.
“What reason did he have to back-heel Scotty on the head when he’s laying on the floor?” Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp asked at the post-match press conference. “It’s got no place in football.”
Balotelli is Balotelli, an asset and a problem. James Lawton of The Independent said Balotelli’s “grotesque and great sides of character” were on show in City’s “season-defining victory.” “Maybe only Mario Balotelli could quite so effectively deface a game that he came to decide in its last moments. It was a superb game and Balotelli is, of course, a superb talent but that didn’t seem to matter so much when he delivered a stamping on the head of Scott Parker with what seemed to be cold deliberation.” “His ability to be both exquisitely creative on the field and at times eccentrically kind off it are qualities that are forever thrust into a darker place”, lamented Lawton, who concluded that, “Balotelli is Balotelli, an asset and a problem that Mancini has decided he is prepared to live with through both the ups and the downs. Yesterday he may have counted himself ahead in a difficult equation, but then he hasn’t heard from the FA yet.”
Balotelli the nihilist. Paul Hayward of The Daily Telegraph said Balotelli “flirts too closely with the malign and must prevent actions crossing the line.” Hayward appreciated why English football “has welcomed this Mohican-sporting oddball as an eccentric in a repressed, image-conscious industry. Supporters love a maverick. But not when he rams his boot into the head of a fellow professional who is prone on the grass.” Hayward insisted that now is the time to “suspend the amused media profiles” recounting how Balotelli ignited his own bathroom blasting fireworks through the window, or handed out cash to strangers in Manchester city center and condemn his “malice.” Hayward understood Redknapp’s “palpable sense of disappointment that Balotelli should want to complicate his talent with these essentially egocentric acts.” Hayward stressed that “each piece of self-indulgence weakens the hope that he might one day develop into a team player with a sense of responsibility towards his City colleagues. The stamp on Parker confirmed his place in a private universe where the support lavished on him by Mancini is irrelevant. A suspicion is that he feels detached from the movie going on around him, and not in a good way. For every time he delights us there is a competing trace of nihilism. If this is his idea of eccentricity, he should keep it to himself.”
Balotelli is at war with himself. Rory Smith of The Times (£) studied the “greatest enigma in English football” and found constant contradiction: “Balotelli is fire, and red mist and rage. A perceived slight, a nerve frayed, and a boot flicks into Scott Parker’s face. Mario Balotelli is ice, and cool and calm. A last-minute penalty, a game won, and his arms stretch out to his flock, a messiah, an idol. Mario Balotelli is 21 years old, he is an elemental force, and he is at war with himself.” Smith said that, “for all the stories of his generosity, his humour, and for all the abundant examples of his talent, Mancini cannot ignore that streak, of petulance, of malice, that is scored through his protégé’s soul.” For City manager Roberto Mancini, Balotelli is “a gamble, of that there is no question. The stakes are high. City’s title challenge and, less immediately but perhaps more significantly, Balotelli’s career depend on whether his mentor’s faith is well invested. He may always be a brat, a prankster, a mischief-maker and a misanthrope. His manager will indulge such traits willingly, but the player must meet him halfway. Only Balotelli can draw the poison from his soul; only he can douse the flames. Yet rarely does he give the impression of being the man with the mat and the hose.”