Here’s an interesting one, a nice rejoinder to all the bad press European football has been getting in recent times for its problems with racism, on the pitch and in the terraces.
Mario Balotelli is another phenom off the production line of hot Italian strikers and already, at barely 18, been linked with a move from his club, Inter Milan, to the Premiership, most notably (predictably) Chelsea, and the Primera Liga with a rejuvenated Réal Madrid.
Italians in England or Spain are not news.
What, however, is news is that the very mummy’s boy-sounding Balotelli, nicknamed “Super Mario”, is black.
Balotelli was born in Palermo, Sicily, but his birth parents, Thomas and Rose Barwuah, are Ghanaian.
At the age of two, with his parents concerned for his health living in a cramped one-bedroom flat with other immigrant families, he was fostered out to an Italian family, the Balotellis, outside Milan following a court order.
He never went back to them.
Balotelli only gained Italian citizenship in August this year when he turned 18, so despite sterling performances for Lumezzane and Inter’s youth teams he could not play for Italy’s junior rep sides because he was officially classified as an alien immigrant, his adoption not legally ratified.
Balotelli made a huge splash this week when he scored twice for Pierluigi Casiraghi’s Italy under-21 side in its do-or-die qualifier for the Euro under-21 championships in Tel Aviv, the first an incredible 30-metre free kick that Roberto Carlos or Ronaldinho would give their right arm to score.
The second, perhaps not as spectacular and certainly not as far out, was scored in open play but is notable for the insouciance with which he traps the ball outside the box, takes aim and fires, leaving Ohad Levita, the hapless Israeli goalkeeper, clutching at air.
The Israelis had drawn the first match of the two-leg tie 0-0 in Ancona and fancied their chances of going through in a big upset at the expense of the Azzurini, but that first time around they didn’t have to counter Balotelli, who missed the match through a bout of flu.
With Balotelli, the Italians were a class apart.
I’ve written much over the years about the problem of football racism in Italy, Spain and the Balkans, but nothing ever seems to change, despite all the Nike-, UEFA- and FIFA-promoted anti-racism campaigns.
Perhaps it’s because Italy, Spain and Croatia in particular, unlike France, lack identifiably black faces in their national senior sides that the boo-boys and banana throwers can actually look at, or up to, and say “he’s one of my own”.
Let’s hope Balotelli, Italian born, Italian raised, and at least on national men’s team coach Marcello Lippi’s radar if not in his plans, can be the start of some real and profound change.
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