It's Round and It's White
Mario Balotelli is very much like Marmite, you either love him or hate him, however the boisterous Italian does bring a lot of entertainment to the Premiership. 2011 saw Balotelli make headlines on and off the pitch, through his various antics and strange sense of humour. We countdown his top 5 best moments of 2011.
#5 – High-Fiving Fans
After Manchester City famously beat their arch enemies Manchester United 6-1, in a game that can only be described as a mauling, Mr Balotelli decided to go around the city of Manchester in his car to high five whoever he saw wearing a Man City top. Now if you’re a Man Utd fan, you’re naturally going to hate the fact he did this, however as a neutral I thought it was quite brilliant.
#4 – Christmas Eve Blowout
On Christmas Eve Balotelli turned up at a pub in Manchester called the Tudor Pub, he then put a £1,000 tab behind the bar so the locals could help themselves to drinks all paid by the outlandish centre-forward. After he left the pub, he attended midnight mass at a church 5 minutes away from the pub. To add to his charitable feeling, he donated £250 to that church as an early Christmas gift. This shows that Balotelli has a charitable side to his nature; you wouldn’t find many other premier league footballers being this charitable on Christmas Eve.
#3 – Swearing live on the BBC
After the FA cup final in May, in which Man City were victorious, when Balotelli was interviewed by the BBC journalist he said live on air “I have been s*** this season. Can I say that?” No Balotelli you can not say that on Live TV at about 5 in the afternoon, do you not know what the watershed is? However when he said that, I found myself laughing quite hard and I can imagine many other neutrals watching found it quite funny too.
#2 – Super Mario
Mario showed his superhero side earlier on in the year, after witnessing a child being bullied by other pupils. He drove the victim to his school, walked into his class and told his bullies to stop bullying him otherwise they will have to answer to Mario. Balotelli clearly does not like bullies, so this should be a warning to all bullies out there. Despite him still having quite a bad reputation, this act proves that Balotelli is a good person and doesn’t like to see other people suffer (unless it’s Manchester United).
#1 – Firework Fail
After stupidly letting fireworks off in his house, it led to it completely burning down. Luckily no-one was seriously injured, although Balotelli lost all his possessions and of course his house. A few days later Mario became the face of a firework safety campaign in Manchester, after what can be described as an idiotic act. I don’t know any other Premier League footballer that burns down their own house through fireworks.
Yes Balotelli does have a bad attitude at times, especially when things don’t go his way, but we can’t deny that we have enjoyed reading stories about his antics on and off the pitch. 2011 saw him make lots of headlines, I wonder what 2012 will bring for the outlandish and somewhat crazy Mario Balotelli.
