Mario Balotelli turns over a new leaf: new adventure kicks off
After more than a year without official matches, Mario Balotelli officially starts again at’Al-Ittifaq: the UAE club, which plays in the second division, officially announced the arrival of the former, among others, Inter, Manchester City, Liverpool and AC Milan on Friday, with a message spread through its social channels: “A name that needs no introduction – reads the short note published by the Dubai-based club -. A presence that speaks for itself: the story continues together”.
At’Al-Ittifaq Balotelli finds an Italian president, Pietro Laterza, who in recent days had admitted that he had thought of the 35-year-old veteran of the parenthesis without particular sharpness at Genoa by scouring specialized sites on the Internet: “Everything was born from a search on Transfermarkt among players without a contract – Laterza told ‘La Gazzetta dello Sport’ -. As soon as we read his name we started contacts with the entourage. He is motivated, he is well. We needed a striker ready to score goals. For Balotelli, Dubai is the right place to start from. He will be our bomber”.
In the team, there are also two other Italian players: Jacopo Da Riva, a midfielder from the class of 2000 who grew up in Atalanta, and Gianluca Santini, a 21-year-old central defender who left from Livorno. l’Al-Ittifaq hopes, also with Balotelli’s contribution in the scoring phase, to climb up a so far deficit ranking, with the yellow and black team last after twelve days with just two wins against ten defeats and a haul of eight goals scored against twenty-seven conceded, respectively the worst attack and the worst defense in the league.
That of Al-Ittifaq will be the thirteenth jersey worn, as a professional, by Mario Balotelli, who after his beginnings at Lumezzane has been part of the rosters of Inter, Manchester City, Milan, Liverpool, Nice, Olympique Marseille, Brescia, Monza, Adana Demirspor, Sion and Genoa, winning with Inter three Scudetti, an Italian Super Cup, an Italian Cup and a Champions League and with City an edition of the Premier League and an FA Cup.
Balotelli, between 2010 and 2018, also collected 36 appearances for the national team, scoring 14 goals. His debut came on Aug. 10, 2010, in a friendly against Ivory Coast (1-0 the score of the match played in London) while his first goal came on Nov. 11, 2011, in Wroclaw in a friendly against Poland (2-0 the final result for the Azzurri).
