Mario Balotelli: A trial by media
Time to leave Mario alone?
Last October, an YouTube clip featuring former Inter Milan manager Jose Mourinho went viral over the internet. In an interview, CNN sports anchor Pedro Pinto asked the Portuguese manager: “Who was the most problematic player you had to ever deal with?”
Before Mourinho could answer the question, Pinto offered to make a suggestion. Mourinho read his mind and said: “Mario? Mario was good fun.
“I could write a book of 200 pages of my two years in Inter with Mario, but the book would not be a drama, it would be a comedy.
“I remember one time went to play Kazan in the Champions League. In that match I had all my strikers injured. No Milito, no 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 go 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.”
Later, Pinto and Mourinho broke into a laughing fit.
In reality, Balotelli was not sent off in the 46th minute. He was shown a second yellow in the 60th minute for a bad tackle, five minutes after he came close to giving Inter Milan the lead. Pinto almost seemed like he wanted Mourinho to name Balotelli even if the manager had someone else on his mind.
Since Balotelli’s transfer to Manchester City from Inter, the Italian hasn’t been able to keep himself out of the back pages of British tabloids. One of the most popular tabloid in England even gave him the title “Headline magnet”. Balotelli’s series of escapades have been widely chronicled by those papers, where stories have more photo captions than news. They are regularly slapped with headlines consciously distorted to sound like sad puns, which often evoke a feeling of strained humor. Heck, these papers would have even printed a few thousand extra copies if one particular edition carried a flimsy piece about Balotelli that was no more than four column inches.
The latest in the Super Mario series is the training ground bust-up with Manchester City manger Roberto Mancini. The reaction from the tabloids to this story wasn’t at all surprising. Sometimes, it feels like the tabloids have him under constant surveillance; as if they have built a two-way mirror between Balotelli and themselves. They wouldn’t want to miss even if he swatted a fly or petted a cat. This increased press coverage on the controversial striker hasn’t been fair on him most of the time.
Some of the stories made their way into the papers because the reporters did not bother to verify the authenticity of their source. Half of the stories were picked up by tabloids based on anonymous tweets and retweets, like they do during the transfer season. Perhaps the best example of shoddy journalism was when a popular tabloid ran a story based on a tweet from an unverified source about Balotelli coming home with a “lorry load of boys toys”. The story was later reported as false and yet the story wasn’t taken down from the website.
The media’s gaze on Balotelli seems unwavering and the number of non-football related stories written about him confirms the tabloids fixation on Balotelli. Enter Mario Balotelli in the search box of the most popular tabloid website in the country and it will throw up 1060 results indexing them neatly in separate sections. There are 90 stories even listed under ‘Bizarre’.
A press officer’s job also requires him to stop bad press and minimize the damage. But the City officials don’t seem to be doing their job very well. Or maybe it is some brand-building exercise that has Sheikh Mansour’s blessings. After all, Mancini recently said that the Sheikh likes Balotelli “because he exports the name of Manchester City all over the world.”
There is no denying that the 22-year-old Balotelli is a volatile player who is easily provoked and tough to confront. The training ground bust-ups that have happened every year since he joined in 2010 is evidence of his poor discipline. It was ex-City defender Jerome Boateng in 2010, Micah Richards in 2011 and Mancini in 2012.
But since the time Sven-Goran Ericksson joined as manager at City, the club’s training ground at Carrington was visible to the public.
“The difference with City is that photographers can stand and take photos all the time at Carrington and this still doesn’t seem to have been sorted out,” said Erickkson while speaking to BBC Sport.
Apparently photographers use stepladders to counter the screens erected by the Club to take pictures.
Is it poor management or media encroachment? The answer to this question is best left alone.
Mancini and Balotelli- a relationship gone sour?
It is quite apparent that Mancini has been too lenient with Balotelli so far. Mancini’s carrot and stick treatment since he was dropped after the home loss to Manchester United, has only caused more friction between the two, and even more stories of exit rumours in the tabloids. A 17-year-old Mario never fell foul with Mancini when the pair worked together at Inter Milan; what changed in their relationship after five years?
When the first batch of Manchester United youth players, who would soon be known as Fergie’s Fledglings, broke onto the Premier League scene in 1992, Sir Alex Ferguson did not allow a single journalist from the Fleet Street speak with his young players. He protected them and nurtured them far away from the gaze of the media. A lesson that he learnt the hard way, as after he handed debuts to six youngsters while he was managing Aberdeen, they were hailed by the press but quickly faded due to the hype.
Mancini, instead of shielding Balotelli from the press, has only fed the media with juicy sound bytes, and even joked in the past about punching him everyday in training. He recognizes Balotelli’s genius but he is not doing City any favors by throwing him to the sharks. A transfer to an Italian club is the best solution for all parties. But something tells me that he will stand and fight.