28 appearances. 4 goals. An argument over a penalty. An anti-Semitic and racist social media post. Swapping shirts with a Real Madrid player at half-time.
The Liverpool career of Mario Balotelli is remembered as a truly bizarre spot in an intriguing era for the club.
The way the Italian international’s time at Anfield panned out came as little surprise to some, including then captain Steven Gerrard.
An extract from Gerrard’s book My Story is recorded by the Daily Mirror as saying:
In my last season, Brendan Rodgers came to me at Melwood one day in mid-August. We had a chat on the training pitch. He said, ‘You know we’ve missed out on a couple of signings. I’m basically left with no option but to have a bit of a gamble.’
Brendan paused before he spoke again: ‘The gamble is Mario Balotelli.’ My instant reaction was, ‘Uh-oh.’
I’d never met Balotelli but I’d heard all the stories about the indoor fireworks and Jose Mourinho describing him as an ‘unmanageable’ player. I could see that, in the right mood, he was a quality footballer but the rest of his career seemed like a spectacular waste of talent. That was my opinion of Balotelli.
In short, he was right. Balotelli is regarded as one of the biggest mistakes Liverpool have made with regards to recruitment in recent times, and was sold to Nice in 2016.
