Fresh from his impressive display against city rivals United on Sunday, Manchester City‘s Italian striker Mario Balotelli has for the first time spoken out on the fire incident that broke out in his house in the ealr hours of Saturday morning.
The fire was caused by fireworks, however, it is not known who did it or how it happened. In light of this, Balotelli has come out in support of a regional fireworks safety campaign that aims to promote safety when handling fireworks.
Balotelli did however respond to his off field problems by scoring 2 goals that helped his side defeat an unbeaten United side with the widest of margins ever in over 50 years.
Commenting on the matter, this is what Balotelli had to say.
“The newspapers got the story wrong about me and the fire at my house. I didn’t set any fireworks off. It was a friend of mine,” he told the club’s official website. “I didn’t know anything about it until I heard the shouting coming from the bathroom.”
Of course, there is a lot of concern that Balotelli’s football career could be heading down the path of destruction if he does not take care of his attitude soon.
The 21 year old has been compared to Messi, and at times been tipped to become one of the games greats. In Roberto Mancini’s own words, he puts the striker in the top five best players list.
“If we want to talk about Mario regarding a football player,” Mancini said, “I put him in the first five players in the world.” This could be true however, Balotelli needs to get his attitude right and most importantly take responsibility for his action. Statements like the one below do not help his cause.
“The thing at the weekend didn’t come from me, it came from one of my friends and one of my brother’s friends,” Balotelli said. “Maybe I should be more careful about who I let in my house but it wasn’t about me, I didn’t do anything.”
That said, if Balotelli can get his attitude and charachter right, there is no saying where his ability can take him. The only question is whether it will take him his whole career to figure things out, because as much as we like to blame his age for his actions, the truth of the matter is that these are only excuses.
Photo credit © Catatan Bola Photo Gallery
