You could say the Liverpool gamble on Mario Balotelli didn’t quite work out. That would be the understatement of all understatements.
A £16 million purchase made by then manager Brendan Rodgers, Balotelli scored just one league goal during the entire season that he was at Anfield. Liverpool then sent him on loan to AC Milan, and that ended up a disaster as well.
Balo returned last summer, but under new boss Jurgen Klopp, there was no future at all.
The German left him out of all the club’s preseason friendlies, inspiring his agent, Mino Raiola to say that Klopp “was a piece of shit” about how he treated Balotelli. The player himself would later say that his decision to go to Liverpool was the biggest mistake of his entire career.
Raiola negotiated a free transfer to Nice for his client, which was completed on deadline day. Mario Balotelli has now found his form again in Ligue 1, but his disastrous spell at Liverpool is back in the headlines today.
Rodgers, speaking at Celtic’s Player of the Year awards ceremony, was asked who was the greatest player he has ever coached.
Despite working with the likes of Luis Suarez and Steven Gerrard, the Northern Irishman gave a tongue-in-cheek response, claiming Mario Balotelli was the best he had ever managed. Word of it got back to Balo who hit back, via one of his official social media channels with this:
Brendan Rodgers you are also the best manager I ever had???. Amazing.
— Mario Balotelli (@FinallyMario) May 3, 2017
Flashing back to September, Balotelli had this to say to Canal Plus, about Rodgers (and his time at LFC in general).
“It was the worst mistake of my life. Apart from the fans, who were fantastic with me, I must be honest, and the players, who I had a good rapport with, I didn’t like the club,” he said.
“I had two coaches, Brendan Rodgers and Jurgen Klopp. As people they didn’t make a good impression on me. I didn’t get along with them.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes to WGN CLTV and KOZN.
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