This weekend, at Liverpool, it was the latter. Mancini
played Balotelli as a second-half substitute, hoping his strength and hammer of
a right foot would produce the second goal City needed to win and pull farther
ahead of Manchester United at the top of the English Premier League.
But after only 18 minutes, Balotelli was trudging forlornly
back to the dressing room, gently guided by a police officer in a fluorescent
yellow coat who put a protective arm around him. Referee Martin Atkinson sent
him off for two overzealous, but not malicious, tussles for the ball, first
with Glen Johnson and then Martin Skrtel. The Slovakia defender rolled like a
hooked fish on the Anfield turf while his teammates claimed Balotelli had
elbowed him and bayed for punishment from Atkinson, who obliged.
With Balotelli gone, the score stayed 1-1 and the questions
began for Mancini. He and Balotelli, two Italians earning a good living in the
north of England, have something of a father-son relationship. Mancini is
patient and tolerant with Balotelli and happily speaks about how much he likes
him. Balotelli, who previously played for tough drill sergeant Jose Mourinho at
Inter Milan, has repaid Mancini with trust, gratitude and important goals this
season when former captain Carlos Tevez has let down City so badly.
Mancini said the second of Balotelli's yellow cards on
Sunday, for his coming-together with Skrtel, was not deserved. Mancini also
used an excuse which is true but which has only a limited shelf-life:
"Mario is young." At 21, Balotelli should be entitled to make a young
man's mistakes.
It also is true that Balotelli's mistakes often seem to
garner a disproportionate amount of attention. Other players make clumsy
tackles. Other players are shown yellow and red cards. But they are not all
described in newspaper reports as "volatile," “unhinged," “mad,"
or variations on the theme that Balotelli is something of a fruit cake.
Balotelli shares some blame for that. Anyone who allows
friends to set off fireworks in a bathroom and start a fire in their rented
mansion or who pulls stunts like throwing a dart at a colleague is going to get
bad publicity. Deservedly so. But less deserved are the reports that lampoon
Balotelli's fashion choices, that question how he spends his money and spare
time or which portray him as a clown.
When he scored first in City's 6-1 spanking of United in
October, Balotelli lifted up his jersey to reveal the words "Why always
me?" written on a T-shirt underneath. It seemed funny at the time but it
also is actually a serious question.
Balotelli's fortune is also his misfortune: Football made
him into a young millionaire but also means he is doing his growing up in
public and in the blowtorch glare of the tabloids. How much of what we read
about "mad Mario" is actually true? Certainly not all of it. How much
is myth? A fair chunk.
When he traveled to the Faeroe Islands with the Italian
national team for a Euro 2012 qualifying match in September, Italian football
journalist and author Luigi Garlando was struck by the fact that Balotelli was
the only player to ask him why the islanders grow turf on the roofs off their
houses (it's to provide insulation and protect against storms). Garlondo, who
writes for La Gazzetta dello Sport, described Balotelli as "very
curious," “sensible" and "not the guy that came from the
tabloids."
With the beauty and purity of his football, Balotelli also has
shamed racists in Italy who have showered him with slurs shouted from the
stands. They once wrote "You are not a true Italian, you are a black
African" on the walls leading to the San Siro in Milan where he used to
play. Balotelli says he has learned through experience that it is better to
ignore the abuse. But he's also been quoted as saying that he would prefer the
Italian media spend more time debating racism in Italy and less time discussing
his girlfriends.
Balotelli's first goal for the national team, against Poland
in a friendly match this month, was a 35-yard, right-footed work of art that
looped over the head of sprawling goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny. Molto bello. He
celebrated by kissing the Italian flag on his jersey. Italian media noted that
Balotelli was the first black Italian to score for the Azzurri and hailed him
as a symbol for Italy's multiracial future, with La Gazetta using the phrase
the "United Colors of Italy."
"Since he's young and very likely
to play in the national side for a long time, the Italian people are going to
become accustomed to seeing a black Italian player in the national team,"
anti-racism campaigner Lilian Thuram, France's most capped footballer, said in
an interview. "Kids will grow up accepting that a black person can be
Italian." So Balotelli is carrying a lot of expectation on those muscular
but still young shoulders of his. He is going to make mistakes. He may make a
fool of himself at times. But he is also going to score a lot of goals, too.
Mancini knows which of those is more important. And he's got
the excuses ready to smooth things over just in case.
