Why Always Me? - The Biography of Mario Balotelli, City's Legendary Striker. Frank Worrall
at senior level. ‘Within 24 hours he was with us,’ said Salvioni. ‘He spent a day training with the first team and then he was on the coach with us for the match in Genoa. They were up near the top and we were third from bottom, but we ended up winning 1-0. Mario came on for the last 30 minutes and won the corner from which we scored the winner.’
It was a brave gamble by the coach although Salvioni is quick to deny that there was any risk involved. ‘He was a natural, I knew he had what it took to make it from that first day when I saw him’, he said. ‘Mario is an all-round talented player. He can beat his opponents for pace and skill and he is very physical. The few months he was with me, I was very impressed with him.’
But even Salvioni could sometimes end up angry at the boy. ‘He was always rushing away after training and wouldn’t stay for any tactics,’ he said. ‘I confronted him. He smiled and said, “I have to go home to study”. In the end, he confessed he was going to play five-a-side with his friends. He was arrogant even then, but basically he just wanted to play football.’
Indeed he did, and at a higher level than Serie C. His main aim was to play in Serie A – Italy’s top-flight league – but he was impatient. He was making his mark and making a name for himself at Lumezzane but it was a slow process. So in 2006, he went for a trial at the Nou Camp, the home of Spanish giants Barcelona. The Barcelona sports newspaper, Sport, says the trial went well and that Mario came very close to earning a permanent deal. He played three matches with the Barca B Cadet team, scoring eight goals and impressed the coaches at the club.
But, according to Sport, his agent wanted Mario to earn more money than Barca wanted to splash out (‘far from the average figure for a player of his age’), so Mario returned to Italy and Serie C with Lummezane. Later Mario was quoted as jokingly saying, ‘I had a trial at Barcelona once, they couldn’t handle me. Didn’t want me to upstage some guy, Lionel something.’
But he wasn’t back at Lummezane for long – his dream of playing in Serie A was imminent. A year after his trial with Barca, Milan giants Internazionale signed him as a 17-year-old. The man who brought him to the San Siro? Roberto Mancini…the partnership between mentor and pupil was about to begin. Mario Balotelli was heading for the bright lights of Milan – and one of the world’s biggest, most legendary football clubs.
He was still 15 when he joined Inter Milan on loan from Lumezzane – and it was a move of considerable impact for a boy of such a tender age. He was moving almost 60 miles away from home and would go straight into Inter’s famed youth development programme at the club’s training campus.
With other youngsters he would learn about the game from Inter’s technical staff and live away in sleeping quarters at the complex. It was a case of having to get over any homesickness and getting on with the job – however painful it may have been.
Luckily, each day would be structured and busy, so the minds of the youngsters were occupied and not drifting off with thoughts of home. Mario settled in well; of course he didn’t enjoy being away from home, but he was absolutely determined to make it as a footballer – whatever the personal cost.
He had already come a long way from being adopted to battling through illness and racist issues. He was a tough lad and he was well liked at the Inter training complex. But even at Inter, he could not completely hide his rebellious streak.
If something irked him, the coaches would know. He wasn’t a boy who just kept quiet and stayed in the shadows! Inter’s junior coach Vincenzo Esposito would recall one particular instance of the famed Balotelli stubbornness. ‘The day before an important match we stressed to the players the importance of good preparation,’ Esposito said. ‘Mario went straight off, bought a huge ice-cream and licked it before my very eyes.’ The coaches concede that Mario got away with things that some other kids might not have. He was likeable – and he could score goals. ‘It’s the old thing of being able to charm and not get a bollocking – basically because you are good at your job,’ I was told. ‘That was the thing with Mario – he might have been a bit of a rebel at times, but he did the business on the field. You could always rely upon him to pull a goal or two out of the hat just when you needed him to.’
Certainly, making it through the Inter youth programme into the first team squad is no walk in the park. Current Inter youth coach Stefano Bellinzagh recently gave an insight into life at the youth development centre, Interello, where youngsters learn and live.
When asked what characteristics he and the other staff at Interello look for when taking on youngsters, he said, ‘During the selection process we first look at three basic main characteristics: technical ability, strength and physical build, and good motor skills. A fourth element and in a way the most important is personality.
‘Even at the youth level within a professional club, there are lots of expectations, and young players face a lot of pressures. We choose those players with strong personality traits like leadership and self-confidence, which we think will allow them to deal with pressure situations as they present themselves. Preparation broadens to include game tactics: team systems (man, zone, and mixed zone), and positional play.’
As for Interello itself, it is a dream for a young footballer but could also be a daunting prospect such is the scale, size and ambition of the place. Soccer Magazine Online described it thus, ‘Interello is the technical training centre of Inter Milan youth teams. Interello is situated on 30,000 square metres of land and has three regulation grass soccer fields, two earth soccer fields, two seven aside soccer fields, two gyms, two medical rooms, six changing rooms, and sleeping quarters for players living there.’
Mario took it all in his stride when he worked his way up through the youth ranks at the San Siro. Outwardly confident and determined (as they liked to see the youngsters at Interello), he seemed a strong personality. A leader and a star in the making. Of course, the youth coaches did not know the full story – how much he had had to struggle to get there and how that outward strength, some would even call it arrogance even back then, actually masked an inner insecurity and vulnerability.
But the coaches liked what they saw and sensed they had a genius on their hands.
Mario also had the benefit of being spotted by the club’s manager, none other than Roberto Mancini. The boss told his coaches to bring the boy through gently – that he had great potential, but that he would have to be nurtured and encouraged. The big stick would not work with a boy who clearly did not like being dictated to or bullied.
Mario’s impact was immediate. He scored goals galore for the juniors and his technique and talent was beyond question. He passed every test and every trial. So it was no surprise when a year later Inter decided he was good enough. When they had initially taken him on loan, they had paid Lumezzane 150,000 euros and now they paid a further 190,000 euros to buy him outright.
He had cost Internazionale a total of 340,000 euros – roughly £230,000. For that they had got a player who would three years later go to Manchester City for a fee of around £23million – not a bad profit and certainly one of the best ever achieved by the Milan outfit.
Not that everyone was pleased by the initial deal that took him from Lumezzane to Milan. The website, theoffside.com, explained in 2008, ‘One person who is not on the jovial side [with the final buy-out of Balotelli] is Lumezzane president Renzo Cavagna. Fiorentina and Inter both tried to sign the young phenom, but the Nerazzurri beat out the Viola and added Balotelli to their youth ranks, first on loan, and then signing him on a nominal fee. Balotelli was promoted to the Primavera squad as a 16-year-old, and led Inter to a Scudetto victory. Cavagna is angry because he was not invited to the [victory] ceremony. He also said he has contacted Moratti [Inter chairman] saying that Inter should have given a little more “help” to Lumezzane for the work they did discovering the striker in 2001 and allowing