“I am the best Italian striker.” Is the current Balotelli really necessary for the national team at the European Championship?
Georgy Ilyushchenko November 24, 2023, 20:00 Moscow time
Mario is used to rising above others. Is this right now?
If you read the following three sentences, you will hardly have any doubts about their authorship.
“One day I approached Cristiano Ronaldo and told him: “I play football much better than you”; “There is only one player in the world who is a little cooler than me. This is Lionel Messi. “Everyone else is behind”, “Wayne Rooney is, of course, good, but he is not the best footballer in Manchester.”
Yes, Mario Balotelli said all this. He is now 33 years old. He has long since disappeared from the radar of top clubs, but his sense of self-importance remains intact and shines brighter than Pep Guardiola’s bald head. This is how the eccentric footballer reacted to the successful qualification of the Italian team for Euro 2024:
“I still think that I am the best Italian striker when I am healthy. Did Raspadori and Scamacca even play against Ukraine? How many times did they hit the target between the two of them? Two? I want to play with the national team again when I recover from my injury. I always hope to have a challenge. I met Spalletti several times and we had a good talk.”
Mario Balotelli and Luciano Spalletti
Photo: Getty Images
Giacomo Raspadori and Gianluca Scamacca are never, of course, Roberto Baggio and Christian Vieri. And not even Luca Toni and Alberto Gilardino. In qualifying for Euro 2024, each of these two players played six games and scored only one goal. The statistics, to put it mildly, are not outstanding.
By the way, Balotelli’s mathematical skills did not disappoint him: both Raspadori and Scamacca each made only one inaccurate shot towards the Ukrainian goal. Both took 45 minutes: the second replaced the first at half-time.
How was the match between Italy and Ukraine:
Italy did not allow Ukraine to qualify for Euro 2024. But the match ended in a refereeing scandal.
However, Balotelli is no longer the same player who defeated Germany in the Euro 2012 semi-finals and dragged Italy to the continental championship decider. When was the last time he played for the national team? In the fall of 2018. When did you play for a strong club? In the spring of 2019 it was Marseille. When did you score in an important championship? In January 2020 he scored for Brescia against Lazio.
After that, his record includes Serie B Monza, Turkish Adana Demirspor, Swiss Sion and, finally, Adana again, where he has been based since September of this year. And what did Mario do to deserve a call-up to the national team, even despite the dullness of his current center forwards? Only statistics can answer this.
This Turkish Super League/Italian Serie A season:
Balotelli has 5 games for Adana Demirspor (36 minutes on average on the field), 3 goals scored (1.84 expected and 61 minutes per goal), 11 shots on goal and 5 on goal, 0 assists (0.17 expected) ; Raspadori has 12 games for Napoli (59 minutes on average on the field), 3 goals scored (2.93 expected and 238 minutes per goal), 35 shots on goal and 14 on goal, 2 assists (1.17 expected); Scamacca has 9 games for Atalanta (56 minutes on average on the field), 5 goals scored (2.67 expected and 100 minutes per goal), 26 shots on goal and 11 on goal, 1 assist (0.39 expected).
Giacomo Raspadori, Mario Balotelli and Gianluca Scamacca
Photo: Getty Images
Balotelli rarely plays, but when he does take the field, he is still capable of producing results. And he does it more often than Scamacca and especially Raspadori. The problem is the incomparable level of the championships: the top scorer of the Turkish league, Edin Dzeko, has already scored 10 goals in 12 games, while at Inter during the entire last season of Serie A he only scored nine goals (three penalty). .
Mario’s statistics deserve respect, but they are not good enough to stand out even against the mediocre level of the Italian championship competitors. In addition, there are two other important factors against Balo’s return to the national team:
1. How will teammates react to a challenge from a person who publicly hates his attackers?
2. In the last three years, Balotelli missed 176 days (!) due to injuries, or almost six months. Is not too much? Will he have time to recover if another injury occurs?
Mario Balotelli
Photo: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
By declaring his need for the national team, Mario seems to live in the past. The same place where he shines at Euro 2012, he scores in the Premier League with Manchester City or at least resurrects his career at Nice. His statements still make the media explode, but unfortunately they no longer make much sense.
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