by ant london » Sat Oct 29, 2011 1:03 am
The cult radio DJ Howard Stern once said that his fans tuned in for an average of an hour a day while those who despised the American shock-jock and his show (and there were many), listened for almost two and a half hours. The New York station WNBC enlisted a team of researchers to get to the bottom of this bizarre phenomenon. Almost every listener returned the same answer: "I want to see what he'll say next." Which reminds me of someone else.
Mario Balotelli may have as good a claim as any modern-day player to being the latest incarnation of the much‑misunderstood and similarly adored maverick footballer. Since his arrival in England last August, the Italian can cross off his own personal "to do" list: setting fire to his house (albeit with a little help from his friends), writing off a £70,000 car, throwing darts at Manchester City's youth-team players and defying club orders to attend the FA Cup parade.
His performances on the pitch are every bit as colourful. Fans have been treated to a petulant red card that all but cost City their European adventure last season, a bizarre pirouette in a pre‑season friendly in America (for which he was immediately substituted) and glimpses of the exceptional raw talent that persuaded City's management to shell out £22m.
In what may well be a flaw in my own make-up, I profess to have a huge weakness for what many commentators diplomatically refer to as "one of the game's characters". From George Best and Stan Bowles to Paolo Di Canio and Eric Cantona, players who are mutually respected among fans from various clubs usually have two things that stand out: a complete disregard for what anybody thinks of them and a natural gift for playing the game.
I've been fortunate enough to have played with a couple who belong in the same category. One of them made it easy for everyone who met him to never want to have anything to do with him again, such was the apparent arrogance of the man. But working on my principle of not prejudging before engaging in any worthwhile conversation, I eventually found him to be one of the most natural, funny and intelligent people I have ever known and, above all, completely misunderstood.
Even the local police warmed to him such was his standing at our club. On one occasion he had accumulated several driving offences seen by the same two officers over a short period of time, yet they never reported him. They would just escort him into training and, amazingly, pull the manager aside and tell him to have a word on their behalf. On a match day he was generally sublime.
Everyone learns to be tolerant of these individuals. A manager will soon recognise when to ask for more and when to ease off, as do fellow players. The seemingly special treatment "Paolo" received was always held against him until 5pm, by which time he might well have won us the game. For me, he will always be an inspiration as well as the player who stole my car keys to drive 200 miles home after being substituted at half-time because his car was blocked in.
Today that story brings a smile to my face – only "Paolo" could have pulled off a stunt like that – but there were also occasions when he had the capacity to infuriate me as well as others. Perhaps it was because he was foreign and was "handled" differently. Some of his antics were accepted, I'm sure, because our manager couldn't tell if certain aspects of his behaviour were in some way normal for people from "Paolo's" country.
The word on the football grapevine last season was that at Manchester City some of the English players felt that their foreign team-mates were getting cut more slack when it came to the way they were treated. Roberto Mancini, the City manager, has certainly been extremely patient with Balotelli in the face of some testing situations, equally Carlos Tevez prior to the Bayern Munich incident that would have pushed any manager over the edge.
Yet when Adam Johnson produced a man-of-the-match performance against Wolves on Wednesday night, four days after he had failed to even get on the bench at Old Trafford, Mancini chose to highlight a negative rather than applaud his response to being snubbed. "Adam has everything and it disappoints me when he plays every game and doesn't put everything on the pitch," Mancini said. "Tonight he played well but, for example, on the second goal that Wolves scored, he didn't follow his opponent."
Balotelli's problems have, at times, run much deeper than failing to track back but the Italian seems to escape censure from Mancini as long as the good outweighs the bad. His team‑mates will certainly be grateful for his presence on the pitch as long as he continues to perform like he did against Manchester United, and there won't be too many gripes with what he gets up to off the field if it deflects attention away from any of their own misdemeanours.
It is also worth noting that not everything Manchester's recently anointed fire-safety officer gets up to belongs on a crime sheet. Balotelli has become a lovable rogue because of the story that surfaced of him returning a young boy who was playing truant to his school and confronting his bullies on the pupil's behalf, and then there was the night when he came out of a casino and handed a homeless gentleman £1,000 in cash.
Whether Balotelli will go on to become one of Manchester City's great players is unclear; I couldn't even tell you if he will be at the club next year or volunteering in a soup kitchen instead, which is another of the striker's pastimes, apparently.
How can anybody second-guess a man who seems to thrive on spontaneity? But whatever he does, I will definitely be watching, because like everyone else, I'm desperate to see what he's going to do next.
Follow the Secret Footballer on Twitter @TSFGuardian
[/center]
