Some fans might be licking their lips, but for some pundits, AC Milan fans on Tuesday got the rawest deal when Mario Balotelli became the latest English Premier League flop to return “home” in a quest to resurrect his career.
Of them all, Balotelli’s return to Milan on a one-year loan deal following a disastrous first season with Liverpool is by far the most controversial.
Loved and hated in equal measure, the 25-year-old continues to divide fans and mystify pundits who believe there is still so much more to come from a player whose controversies far outweigh his true achievements in the game.
Photo: EPA
“Let us stop talking about him, he is never achieved anything,” former AC Milan midfielder Zvonimir Boban said last season.
Not many Liverpool fans would disagree — after a season in which Balotelli failed to shine and created headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Balotelli took 13 games to score his first Premier League goal for the Reds and was then suspended for one game and fined for posting an image on social media that appeared to contain anti-Semitic and racist references.
Milan have taken a gamble.
Like many of his international peers, Balotelli is keen to secure regular football ahead of next summer’s UEFA European Championships in France.
“I am happy to be back. This club is in my heart and I always hoped to play here again,” Balotelli said on Tuesday.
Still, he must have got the chills when reading the reaction in Italy to his return.
A poll on the popular Processo del Lunedi sports program on Rai television on Monday showed 62 percent of AC Milan supporters to be against his return.
Last week, Boban called the intended move “absurd.”
“I wish him all the best, but he has never really taken off as a player. If he returns, it is totally absurd,” Boban added.
Balotelli, signed by Liverpool for ￡16 million (US$25 million) last summer, is not the only Premier League casualty to find a degree of solace in Italy.
Out-of-favor Manchester City striker Edin Dzeko, bought from Wolfsburg for ￡27 million in January 2011, has signed a one-year loan deal with AS Roma, where he joined up with Chelsea-owned Mohamed Salah following the Egyptian’s loan move to the capital club from ACF Fiorentina.
Dzeko, tied to City until 2018, was partly lured by Bosnia teammate Miralem Pjanic’s praise of Roma, and regular football.
Dzeko has scored 72 goals in 189 games in all competitions for City, but had a mixed campaign with Manuel Pellegrini’s side last season. City teammate Stevan Jovetic is also out on loan, at Inter, having fallen out with Pellegrini when omitted from City’s UEFA Champions League squad last season, when he started only 11 games.
Jovetic was sold by Fiorentina to City for ￡22 million in July 2013.
Another former Fiorentina player, Juan Cuadrado, is the latest to fail the Premier League acid test.
The fleet-footed Colombia forward joined Chelsea for ￡26.8 million in February last year — a deal in which Salah, bought by Chelsea for a reported ￡11 million in January last year, went the other way.
While Salah went on to sparkle for the Florence-based club, Cuadrado’s game time at Stamford Bridge was limited.
Months after Mourinho said: “I do believe that he will be amazing next season,” Cuadrado is now at Juventus on a loan deal.
However, contrary to Balotelli, his welcome was far warmer.
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