Why Always Me? - The Biography of Mario Balotelli, City's Legendary Striker. Frank Worrall
the San Siro, saying, ‘It is not to denigrate Mourinho’s gifts to accuse him of short-termism. That is what he does, and he does it better than anyone. Take his signings at Inter in the summer of 2009, before his last, silver-laden season: Diego Milito, Wesley Sneijder, Samuel Eto’o. Hardly building for the future. He rarely used Inter’s young talents – Davide Santon remains the most obvious – and even his training methods were designed to produce results simply for that one campaign. His successors found a squad short on conditioning, thanks to Mourinho’s rigid adherence to a training plan short on stamina work.’
In his first full season at Inter, Mario had made 15 appearances and scored seven goals – a respectable return of a goal every other game. In his first season under Mourinho, he would play in double the number of games of his first campaign, a total of 30, and hit the back of the net nine times. So his appearances were more frequent, but his goals less so – now registering at the rate of one every three games, instead of two.
Mourinho had arrived on a three-year contract and within three months had won his first Italian honour, the Supercoppa Italiana – in no small part thanks to the efforts of Balotelli, who came on as a second-half substitute for Figo. After 80 minutes the match appeared to be heading for a 1-1 draw and extra time. Sulley Muntari had put Inter ahead on 18 minutes, only for Daniele de Rossi to equalise on the hour. But as extra-time loomed, the match unexpectedly sizzled into life. Mario put Inter ahead once again with seven minutes remaining and, right at the death, Murko Vucinic saved the day for Roma. Extra time failed to find a winner and so it was down to the lottery of penalties.
Inter now finally put the tie to bed, winning 6-5 from the spot. Mario again played his part, banging home the second penalty. As the Associated Press (AP) reported at the time, ‘Serie A champions Inter Milan defeated Italian Cup holders AS Roma on penalty kicks to win their fourth Italian Super Cup. Roma captain Francesco Totti, in his first game back after a knee injury in April, missed his penalty that would have given his side victory. Roma came from behind twice in regulation time in front of 43,000 spectators at Milan’s San Siro stadium. The two teams failed to score in extra-time. Inter regained the cup which was launched in 1998 and pits the winners of Serie A against the winners of the Italian Cup. Mario Balotelli scored in the 83rd with an easy shot when he found himself one-on-one with Roma goalkeeper Alexander Doni after an offside trap failed.’
Mourinho, who had spent most of the match stuck to the bench, was delighted with Mario and the team. His premise on arriving at any club has always been to win some silverware – however small it may appear at the time – just to get something on the board, and in the trophy cabinet. This was his first trophy win through a penalty shootout and probably the high point of his relationship with Mario. He knew the boy had real talent and had seen him apply himself and help win the trophy. He could ask no more of him…yet, at least.
Heading towards December 2008, Mario cemented his relationship with Mourinho by scoring his first Champions League goal. He netted the first goal in the 3-3 draw with Cypriot side Anorthosis Famagusta, at the same time entering the record books as the youngest Inter player (at 18 years and 85 days) to score in the Champions League. His feat eclipsed the previous record set by Obafemi Martins at 18 years and 145 days.
If the goal against the Cypriots was the highlight of Balotelli’s second season in the senior squad at Inter, there was no quibbling at all over what were the low points. The first came a couple of weeks after the Christmas decorations had come down – in the middle of January 2009 when he had his first major run-in with Mourinho. The Portuguese was unhappy with Mario’s post-Christmas work on the training field and felt that his attitude had deteriorated too. It all came to a head with Mourinho blowing his top and wringing his hands in despair. Fifa.com reported, ‘Teenage Inter Milan star Mario Balotelli has paid for his poor attitude with coach Jose Mourinho excluding him from first team action until the end of the month. The 18-year-old son of Ghanaian immigrants is considered to be Italy’s finest young talent and has already played for the Italy U-21 side four times, scoring three goals.
‘The striker broke into the Inter side during the second half of last season and has seen regular playing time alongside star Sweden forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic during this campaign. However Mourinho, a stickler for discipline, dropped him from his squad, criticising Balotelli’s application to training, and on Monday he revealed that things have not improved.’
Mourinho said, ‘Nothing has changed, neither Balotelli’s way of training nor his attitude. His brother (and agent) has made it clear that Mario wants to go out on loan but I will wait until the end of the transfer window after which he will understand that he has to stay. Maybe then he will change his attitude and return to the first team fold.’
Mourinho was still of the belief that Mario could be one of the best players in the world – but said he needed to apply himself more seriously. ‘As far as I’m concerned a young boy like him cannot allow himself to train less than people like [Luis] Figo, [Ivan] Cordoba or [Javier] Zanetti,’ said Mourinho. ‘I can’t accept that from someone who is still a nobody, who hasn’t made it yet, who is still a talent with potential. He needs to train harder, to understand what are the important things for me which I think are important for him and his future.
‘Because if he was to train half as hard as players like Zanetti and the others, he would be one of the best in the world. But he only trains 25 per cent as hard. Hence in January he will definitely stay here to learn how to train well.’
Mourinho suspended him but kept him at the club, refusing all further pleas for him to go out on loan elsewhere. That in itself was, of course, a major compliment – why would you keep someone unless you thought they were talented? Mourinho had already said he thought Mario could be one of the world’s best – and now he was determined to push him hard to achieve that end. That the peace between them would never be established and that they would continue to fall out during a spell that would see Mourinho bring the ultimate club trophy, the Champions League, to the club says a lot about their similar personalities and egos.
Milan simply was not big enough for the both of them – both wanted to be the main man, the star, the darling of the fans but that was never possible with a manager like Mourinho, who insisted on total control and taking total credit for any success.
In April 2009 Balotelli scored Inter’s goal in the 1–1 draw with Juventus and was racially abused by Juventus fans throughout the game, with chants such as ‘Black Italians do not exist’.
Inter supreme Massimo Moratti was furious at the treatment of his star young player, saying he would have ordered his team to leave the field of play if he had been present. ‘If I had been at the stadium, at a certain point I would have left my seat in the stand, I would have gone onto the pitch and I would have pulled the team off,’ Moratti told Gazzetta dello Sport.
‘They seemed proud and happy to sing those things. This is terrible.’
Juve president Giovanni Cobolli Gigli apologised to Balotelli and Inter and admitted Serie A had a problem with racism – and that the culture of racism among fans had to end. ‘On behalf of Juventus and the great majority of our fans I want to strongly condemn the racist chanting against Inter Milan’s Mario Balotelli,’ he said. ‘There are no excuses or justification for this type of behaviour. Episodes such as this are inexcusable. Together we must all try to promote a sporting culture that puts respect for the adversary at its core and fights against racism.’
Reuters reported that ‘racist abuse is not uncommon in Italian soccer and small fines are usually handed out’. But this time the Italian football authorities finally showed their teeth, as the BBC reported, ‘Juventus have been ordered to play a home game behind closed doors after their fans racially abused Inter Milan striker Mario Balotelli at the weekend. The 18-year-old scored Inter’s goal in the 1-1 Serie A draw and was taunted by sections of the Juve crowd in Turin. The Italy under-21 international was born in Palermo, Sicily, but is of Ghanaian descent.
‘The Italian League is likely to bar fans from Juve’s home game against Lecce on 3 May…the abuse suffered by Balotelli on Saturday prompted league officials to come down heavily on Juventus.’
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