And this latest one from the Liverpool training ground last season might just be the craziest one ever – and there is competition.
Despite a poor first season at Anfield, one would have assumed Balo was still worthy of a place in Liverpool’s pre-season tour of Australia, but he was mysteriously left at home.
And now we know why.
This article from the Independent reveals the moment that Brendan Rodgers decided that the striker was no longer worth the trouble; the straw that broke the camel’s back.
During training last March, he intentionally scored an OG from the halfway line, purely for his own amusement, which left everyone stunned by the sheer idiocy of it.
Aside from that unbelievable incident, there are also amazing tidbits, like that fact that he didn’t even know the names of some of his teammates after months at the club.
”During training Colin Pascoe, then Liverpool’s assistant manager, gathered the squad in a huddle close to Melwood’s perimeter wall. Thirty or 40 yards away, Jon Flanagan was hobbling by, an injured player facing almost a year on the sidelines. Balotelli started shouting towards him for no apparent reason,
“Hey, hey…” interrupting Pascoe’s flow. For that, the Italian was threatened with banishment to the changing rooms.
Later in the afternoon, Balotelli scored a jaw-dropping goal from near the halfway line. Witnesses stood open-mouthed: first-team players shook their heads in disbelief, youngsters smirked nervously at the brilliance in front of them. One problem: the goal was at the wrong end.
At 1-1 during a 10 on 10 match, with Balotelli on the weaker team made up of likely substitutes for the weekend’s game at Arsenal as well as teenagers from the academy, he deemed it appropriate to turn around and fire a shot towards Brad Jones. The goalkeeper was helpless.
Balotelli thought it hilarious, laughing away by himself in the centre circle.”
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