18 Mar 2011 09:11:00
Roberto Mancini, Manchester City (Getty Images)
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By Jonathan Birchall at Eastlands
As Mario Balotelli’s studs met the thigh of Goran Popov last night, you couldn’t help but feel that the Ukrainian wasn’t the only one feeling the pain. For Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini, it was yet another blow to his judgement over signing the increasingly troublesome 20-year-old.
There can be little doubting the effect that the Italian’s dismissal had on his side. Needing to score against a side as resilient as Dinamo Kiev is a task in itself when your side is on a level playing field with them but with a numerical disadvantage, the battle was half lost for the Eastlands outfit only a quarter of the way in to the second leg.
On occasion, the former Inter man has looked a prospect like no other in world football. Coupling frightening pace with an imposing physique, Super Mario, in the correct frame of mind, could explode on to the Premier League scene with consummate ease. More often however, Mancini looks to have dished out £24 million pounds on a dressing room time bomb.
When Sheikh Mansour’s millions were pumped into the club in 2008, the old adage that you can’t buy team spirit was a constant lesson dished out to then manager Mark Hughes, though you would expect, for 24 million of them, to at least get a little professionalism for your buck.
In this department, Balotelli has failed to live up to his lucrative price tag time and again. But against Kiev, when the club needed not only strength in numbers but character also, the striker lost his cool, ludicrously assaulting Popov with his studs. It was an indictment of his respect for his team-mates, his employers and his profession.
Not so super Mario | Balotelli sees red in first half of crunch Europa League tie
City certainly have previous with prima donnas behaving in a way not befitting of their extortionate salaries. Robinho, the man deemed the first face of the ‘Blue revolution’, proved himself little more than a crippling disruptive influence on the pitch and in the dressing room. The Brazilian was all cash and little class.
Taking that into account, surely many will rightly ask why Mancini even bothered taking the risk with the boy he had so often seen fly off the handle when he had coached him in Milan?
It is looking ever more like a terrible piece of business by the City boss. The model from which to copy is not too far away from the Italian’s eyesight.
Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes look to be leading Manchester United to a 19th league title, still heeding the mantra that no player, regardless of his ability, is bigger than the institution for which he plays. Successful clubs are built on spirit and pride, which, for all of his abilities with a football, Balotelli appears to have yet been able to add to his armoury.
Most troubling of all for Man City, tonight’s debacle proved that the Balotelli problem transcends money. For all the riches in the world, which the Manchester club appears to have at its disposal anyway, a player who will actively damage your side’s chances of success by merely being present, by body if not in mind, is much worse than a flop. He’s a full-on crisis.
Balotelli’s team-mates know that excuses will no longer wash and behind the frail defences that they offered for the youngster’s actions this evening, an acknowledgement of required change was barely suppressible on the faces of his more experienced, more level-headed colleagues.
“He’s a talented boy…but he’s let the team down,” said Nigel De Jong after City crashed out. Intentionally or not, the Dutchman had hit the proverbial nail on the head. A prodigy he may be but in the eyes of those around him, Mario Balotelli continues to be little more than a problem child.
