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Does Balotelli need to take one step back to rekindle his fireworks?

By on August 22, 2015

Rewind to the heydays of Mario Balotelli and the training bibs, the t-shirts, the celebrations and the darts; but more importantly, the goals. When he was scoring, he’d cause a stir. When he wasn’t, he’d cause an even bigger stir. It was always him.

Yes, there were fireworks off the pitch but there were also fireworks on it. At Manchester City, Balotelli literally set off a firework in his own bathroom in October 2011, but turned around the next day guns-a-blazing to score twice in City’s famous 6-1 routing of Manchester United.

Despite frequent bust-ups and controversies, Balotelli scored goals. He moved from Internazionale to City, then on to AC Milan. At the San Siro, the 2013/2014 season was one of the most productive in Balotelli’s career, with fourteen goals and six assists in thirty league appearances, despite his relationship with the club predictably deteriorating.

Liverpool were there to take the “calculated risk” of signing the forward last summer. While the goals were still there Balotelli always had another suitor. Liverpool had just reluctantly sold Luis Suarez to Barcelona, but Rodgers then made it all too clear that he would become the next manager to take Balotelli in as a pet project of sorts and “help him improve as a person.”

In the past year at Liverpool, Balotelli has managed to avoid this prior levels of controversy, but the goals have also dried up. Now, it’s never him. Gradually, Balotelli has been isolated from the club, forced to train on his own. His social media illustrates the struggle that the twenty-five-year-old has faced. Yet instead of acting up, Balotelli has seemingly put his head down and worked harder. He’s moderated some of the “unmanageable” (as Jose Mourinho famously put it) aspects of his game mentality, but the goods have gone with it. For a player who is making headlines when he’s at his best, the Italian’s current mood seems like somewhat more of a sulk.

Without the goals, the suitors have dried up. Fiorentina are reportedly interested but the club’s fanbase have reacted furiously to the rumors, displaying a sign at the training ground that reads “Florence does not want you,” which goes a long way to define the present unfolding of Balotelli’s career.

Now Watford of all clubs seem intrigued, and while it is reported that AC Milan are also interested in re-signing Balotelli on loan, the question has become whether he can meet the expectations of the flashes of brilliance he has shown in the (increasingly distant) past? Perhaps it would be better for the forward to take one step back to a smaller club to rekindle his fireworks. He’s arguably approaching at rock bottom, but only twenty-five and half-way through his footballing career. There’s an old cliche told to patients at rehab facilities: “this could be the best day of your life or the worst and it’s your choice.”

Photo credit: Karman Hussain, via Flickr

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.