There is no denying it, Liverpool were left with a giant hole to fill this summer when their talismanic forward Luis Suárez moved on to Barcelona. Of course Liverpool were left with no choice but to sell after Suárez had once again started his dinner prematurely, this time during the World Cup.
The Uruguayan had used up all of his ‘last chances’ and Liverpool had to cash in while the money and the interest were still there. But the fact remains, it would have taken something pretty special to replace him. Brendan Rodgers decided that the answer was a certain Mr Mario Balotelli.
Is this a fantastic bit of business as a seemingly irreplaceable world class footballer has somehow been replaced with another one? Or have Liverpool once again taken the same kind of poorly calculated risk that they took with Suárez?
Anyone who is anyone will already be familiar with the antics of the unique Italian striker. More than enough column inches have been spent on Balotelli and the substantial baggage he comes with. We all like to write about Mario, this site included, because there is almost always something interesting to write about. The fireworks in the bathroom, the fact that he drove into a women’s prison because he wanted to ‘have a look around’, his on-field temperament, the fact that he can’t put on a training bib. Most of it humorous, all of it journalistic gold.
At first you could be forgiven for thinking that the Mario Balotelli who jumps out of the paragraph above is not the one that has just returned to England. This new Balotelli is older and wiser. But, then again, he did leave AC Milan for just £16million. Just £5million more than Championship club Fulham paid fellow Championship club Leeds United for 28 year old Championship striker Ross McCormack. It’s just over half of what Man United spent on a left back. The transfer market is insane at the moment and to get a talent like Balotelli for £16million shows that not all was well in Milan.
Many Brendan Rodgers fans (and I am one of them) claim that he is the man to get the best out of Balotelli. I see where they’re coming from. He is a fantastic coach and will not only be able to get Mario to the height of his powers but he will be able to accommodate him in a system that suits him. It’s exactly what Rodgers did with Suárez. Suárez was already an impressive player when Liverpool signed him but he had by far the best spell of his career under Rodgers. But it was never Suárez’s form that was the issue.
What Liverpool struggled to do with Suárez was tame him, they couldn’t separate Luis Suárez the player from Luis Suárez the person. And ultimately it cost them as they were forced to sell their star player when, purely for football reasons, they would have loved to have held onto him.
My opinion of Mario is that he can be summed up perfectly by the story below, as told by José Mourinho. It comes from José’s time in charge of Inter Milan, an Inter side containing Balotelli. Give it a read, read it in José’s voice if you like. I can’t seem to help but do so.
“I could write a book of 200 pages of my two years at Inter with Mario, but the book would not be a drama – it would be a comedy,”
“I remember one time when we went to play Kazan in the Champions League. In that match I had all my strikers injured. No Diego Milito, no Samuel Eto’o, I was really in trouble and Mario was the only one.
“Mario got a yellow card in the 42nd minute, so when I got to the dressing room at half-time I spend about 14 minutes of the 15 available speaking only to Mario.
“I said to him: ‘Mario, I cannot change you, I have no strikers on the bench, so don’t touch anybody and play only with the ball. If we lose the ball, no reaction. If someone provokes you, no reaction, if the referee makes a mistake, no reaction.'
“The 46th minute – red card!”
Worryingly for Liverpool fans, this is Mario Balotelli in a nutshell. It’s funny, of course it is. José finds it funny, or at least he does now, years later. At the time however, I’m guessing Mourinho didn’t find it quite so funny. Because the humour of the story shouldn’t overshadow the hole Mario Balotelli left his team in that day. It wasn't just harmless high jinks, it had a direct impact on the performance of the team.
However, as the cliché goes, Balotelli is unplayable on his day. Actually, scratch that, Mario Balotelli can be considered unplayable every day. It’s just that what is meant by unplayable varies. Sometimes he is unplayable in the sense that opposing defenders can’t handle him. But, crucially, some days he is unplayable as far as his managers are concerned. There is nothing they can do to coax a good game out of him, as José Mourinho found out in the story above.
At least he should provide plenty to write about. But Liverpool will need much more than just column inches out of Super Mario.