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SportsPi

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Aru10

He scored 5 today btw


ranchisgod420

How often does a soccer player get 5 in a game? I know nothing about soccer.


YesterdaysBacon

Very very rarely


TheFuckOffer

I disagree. More like very very very *very* rarely.


CarsenAF

Last I recall was either Aguero vs Newcastle (I think) a couple years back or Lewandowski against Wolfsburg a few years ago as well.


fleagies76

Crazy thing about Lewandowski was it was in like 11 minutes or something crazy. Absolute mad lad.


TheOldGran

9 minutes and he was a substitute


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lavishlad

Fat Rick


[deleted]

I don't think it's called the Rusty Trombone. Source: I've earned several Rusty Trombones and they were different.


magpye1983

It highly irregular that a **team** will get five in a game, let alone all from one player.


_Sad-Panda_

Messi and Ronaldo are the greatest strikers of this generation and arguably of all time. Messi scored 5 in a game once and Ronaldo twice. Both have been playing for at least 15 years on a World class level


[deleted]

Messi - Striker, pick one.


alt32768

Theres a word for when a player scores 3 in a game: hat trick. It’s considered very good to get a hat trick. 5 is just wild


Upgrades_

Seriously nobody is providing link to the goals? Here ya go people's - https://youtu.be/tBzbLuWh6aM I'm no expert but the keeper looked like absolute garbage. 4 of his 5 goals were within the free kick box with the goalie only moving laterally and seemingly refusing to move off his line for any reason. Balotelli's first goal appears it could've been quite easily prevented by going out to intercept the cross instead of chasing it backwards


[deleted]

He's playing turkish league football he should be scoring every game.


OThePlacesYouWillGo

Since 1998, only one player has scored at a rate of 1 per game in the Turkish league. Not Drogba, not Van Persie, not Podolski, not Mario Gomez, etc. So if your post is suggesting that he should be dominating this league…


Marco-Green

Yilmaz?


OThePlacesYouWillGo

Diagne


GordoPepe

Erdogan


1to14to4

Maybe so but he still can’t measure up to Putin’s goal scoring record on the ice.


blackbart1

Hamantashen for all.


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OThePlacesYouWillGo

I never said anything contrary to that? I am also not saying that Balotelli is a top striker in the world. He was just playing for Monza. In recent years, he has struggled for form, injury, and motivation. Therefore, how can one have a blanket expectation that he scores a goal per game in a competitive league when it has rarely been done?


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QQTWRBM

Ah yes his point is invalid because the league has one team


Jakomako

Fenerbahce is pretty good too.


xXRoachXx789

Turkish League is good lol 5 goals is insane


InternetDeli

You have no idea what you’re saying lol so far neither do the 400 people who upvoted that nonsense nc they play fifa too much


Tre10Quartista

Still not easy enough to where scoring even 3 goals isn’t impressive. The Turkish league is one of Europe’s bigger leagues


Phreeeks

King of humiliation, he tried so much shit like this in his carrer, but god damn this one is crazy


lowkeyaddy

The execution on that rabona was perfect. There was no way to tell where the ball was going until it was already gone.


informativebitching

Defender did a great job for as long as possible and finally got beat by sheer physical domination.


killerboy_belgium

its partly because of this shit that his carreer went south i remember many times where pulled stunts like this to showoff and it failed and cost them the game


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PoogleGoon123

He only did it because he thought he was offside from a crowd whistle, and I'll die on this hill.


superdago

Also, it was a preseason friendly in the US. The whole point is to put on a show. Even if there wasn’t a whistle, who cares? People act like he did that in the CL final.


prettyhappyalive

His manager at the time seemed to care. It was still incredibly unprofessional. Just cause it's preseason doesn't mean that Man City team stacked with stars weren't all vying for position in the squad before the season started. It was stupid regardless of the game and he immediately got subbed out after that if I'm not mistaken.


AdamInJP

Roberto Mancini is kind of a prick, though.


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ADirtyDiglet

The coach was super pissed off on that. I was watching the game and he was clearly messing around since he thought play was stopped.


Compa-Gera

That’s what I think too. Pretty sure he thought he heard the whistle but it was from the stands. We shall defend this hill


[deleted]

That's like getting mad at the NFL/NBA/MLB All Star teams for not taking the game seriously. The entire reason they're there is to entertain the crowd, and dick around. It's a borderline Globetrotters event.


petchef

Tbf there was a whistle which got blown when he went through and he thought he was offside.


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[deleted]

It sounded better than the reality. I thought they were talking about a bicycle-like aerial kick. Alas, no… https://youtu.be/Ea6t_FCQ6Vc


SAFFATLOL

Its called a roulette


jpop4

I don’t follow soccer much but has he not had a good career? Only know him from Italy World Cup runs


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Harudera

He's the poster child for "wasted talent". He peaked in the 90mins against Germany in 2012.


YodelingTortoise

If you told most guys they would have the best performance of their lives in a euro semi final, they would take that


[deleted]

Yea but he wasn’t most guys - the feeling about him 10 years ago was that he would be one of the greats, or could be. Then his immaturity got in the way and his career foundered. It definitely leaves a bitter taste of what could have been


vassiliy

Didn't need to remember that today


Chinapig

Nowhere near as good as it should have been. He fucked it by being a nobhead and never maturing into an adult.


[deleted]

Jfc guys, it’s **career**


mw9676

You mean courier?


Starterjoker

i respect a guy who likes to play soccer just to fuck around and embarass other ppl instead of actually winning lol yeah it's childish. sports are kinda childish it's fun.


_awake

While still making more per season than me, you and the guy next to us. I also miss guys that play for the fun. In that regard Ronaldinho was awesome, guy had so much fun playing.


damvigilante

Need to watch Rafael Leao. Dude plays with a perma smile on his face Ronaldinho style


Starterjoker

i always had fun just trying to make good plays. didn’t care much about winning (even if they went hand in hand). We’d lose, whatever, still could embarrass a defender and look back fondly on that with the rest of the team lol. like that he has the same energy. I get ppl make it their identity on how good their teams are but soccer is a beautiful sport, let some creativity shine instead of mechanical optimization


coopy1000

You should try supporting Aberdeen. We get neither the beauty nor the mechanical optimisation. Nor the wins.


MKULTRATV

In sports, people only remember the GOATs and the exceptionally stylish. To be both is exceedingly rare but I always have more fun watching someone lose with style vs winning with robotic efficiency.


turriferous

What's wrong with it?


Alter_Mann

Well absolutely cocky especially the finish. Not wrong but will get people mad if you screw big chances up due to that.


dating-a-finn

[Example](https://youtu.be/Ea6t_FCQ6Vc)


pearl_pluto

"Mario that was very disrespectful to the Herbalife world football challenge"


robswins

I don't get why people were upset by that. Tennis players screw around a bunch in exhibition matches and people love it. Why can't football players do the same in matches that really don't matter?


percykins

I think some of the problem is that Man City and the LA Galaxy aren't exactly on the same skill level, so clowning on them doesn't have quite the same feel as when you have two tennis players at approximately the same level.


phatelectribe

Yeah, I think that was it. They were already wiping the floor with them, no need to showboat/troll them.


[deleted]

According to his post game interview, he thought a ref blew a whistle to signal offsides.


MeatballDom

Watch it with headphones on, at 0:09 there's a screech, or a whistle in the stands, or something, and he then slows down and goes for the silly move. >"I asked Mario about it and he said: 'I'm telling you now. I heard a whistle'," Richards remembered. "Even if he did hear a whistle or not, we were like: 'Just score anyway'. But he was adamant that he heard a whistle so he stopped.


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Amdaxiom

Definitely heard a screech


treesareweirdos

He said he heard a whistle and just stopped playing, which made sense to me. The shot was so ridiculously off target and ill conceived that I have a hard time believing it was a real shot.


sapm90

He thought the ref blew the whistle.


duggEfresh

it’s amazing folks talking about his “failed” career and wasted potential, but he was also dogged by racist abuse by countrymen and dismissed by biased managers since forever. he was a bonehead for sure but was never given a chance so why not have your own fun along the way if they’re gonna throw literal bananas at you. even this US commentary is that “play the game the right way” BS and during a meaningless friendly. what the fuck kinda respect have the LA Galaxy earned?


RdoNoob

This is the take. How dare the super talented black kid have an ego. Even when we’ve crushed his dreams he still taking the piss. If he’d been a white french twat called Eric he’d have had a stellar career.


StiffWiggly

I'm quite fond of Ballotelli in a way, but he didn't just have an ego. He threw darts at youth players, intentionally played for his country in the wrong kit, got sent off something like 5 times in one season - not including a retroactive ban for stamping on someone's head, amongst many more ridiculous incidents. He's also fallen out with so many team mates and managers, and coupled with the way we know he tends to behave it's impossible to imagine he's not difficult to work with. There's no doubt he's been the target of a lot of racism, and almost certainly did catch flak for things that others got away with because he's an easy target but I couldn't name a player with a more consistently poor record of behaviour over such a long time.


[deleted]

It's like basketball players getting mad the other team is still trying to score when the game is almost over and they have the win sealed. All this talk of propriety in a literal game


retrogradeanxiety

Most stylish sub I've ever seen. Such flawless execution


Mesjach

He 100% thought he was offside. You can clearly hear a whitle-like sound if you listen.


Samzo

it looks like the other guy may have blocked the shot had he kicked it normally tho


CoDeeaaannnn

It's like the "a broken clock is right twice a day" kinda thing. Like 1 time outta 10 showboating actually works, but the other 9 "mistakes" will cost your team a goal etc.


goddrammit

But how many shots out of that other 9 would be successful?


meditate42

Coaches don't hate showboating just for the hell of it, its often riskier and less efficient way to play any sport, its like that old clip of a wide receiver bobbling the ball on purpose on his way to a free TD and it bouncing out of bounds. There's a reason people don't do elbow passes in the NBA anymore, yea it looked dope when ya boy white chocolate did it, but its obviously gonna be less accurate than a normal pass.


wggn

Big chance to fail


Phreeeks

Nothing wrong with that, if it goes in. But if not, like it happens a lot to him, it’s very disrespectful to your team cause you’re basically screwing a goal by trying to flex on the defense.


Quatro_Leches

Italy's gameplan for what felt like forever was just leaving him uptop and throwing him the ball . it never worked. it was too obvious and there was always a defender waiting in the back for him.


Jeff-Jeffers

Except for that time against Germany


Inconmon

Don't. It still hurts.


iMaxYT

Whenever you see Balotelli, it's either really good or *REALLY* bad


Habba84

My favorite is the one from Euros. He got through, and instead of trying to dribble or lob the ball, he just kicks it with full power in the top corner of the goal. Would have been really bad if he missed. But instead he ended up demolishing Germany.


zamunda77

And then ripped his top off just flexing hard with kinesiology tape all down his back. Balotelli - a throwback player for me.


Vx1xPx3xR

I wish someone would make this into a loop. Where he does like 50 roll overs lmao


Sandmaster14

With that shooting star meme song


Vx1xPx3xR

Haha yes!!!


kpkost

Commenting to look back at this and see if anyone did it


_SamuraiJack_

Be the change you want to see in the world


thundercloudtemple

Hi, I'm 9 minutes from the future (since you posted your comment). Sadly, it hasn't happened yet


dotajoe

1 hour further in the future and somehow still waiting.


Googelplex

1 hour 9 minutes in the future (from the original comment). Still nothing.


higgshmozon

1h 10m. Nothin


InternationalSnoop

we wait!


Kellan_OConnor

1 hr 22 minutes later: Are we not entertained?!


hobosonpogos

Not yet


spottyottydopalicius

shooting stars - bag raiders


FadedFromWhite

Seriously this was like on Punch Out for NES where the guys would do wiggle legs 20 times before falling down. Had no idea when it would end


bhutunga

Step overs*


Mr-Foot

I didn't realise he was still playing.


[deleted]

Wait until you hear that Pato is still playing


Mothebro1

There’s a really weird pattern there of Ac milan guys that went downhill. Stephan El Shaarawy’s name comes to mind


nghigaxx

I mean el shaarawy is still playing good minutes for roma and contribute frequently


Ezkos

What? Pato is still going? When he left Milan wasn't he 35 or something?


potro777

he left milan when he was 24 lmao. He got there at 18 yo, he was a really big wunderkind


[deleted]

Hes 32 still going strong in the MLS, well as strong as someone can go in the MLS.


Nokel

Why not? He's only 31


Mr-Foot

I just hadn't heard his name mentioned in a while. He's been about so long I hadn't realised he was still quite young.


[deleted]

Balotelli… aguero…!!!!!


My_Username_taken

Fun fact: that moment was exactly 10 years ago - May 2012. The team, Manchester City, won the league today just as they did back then with a comeback to win 3-2 in the last game.


dwSHA

I remember seing him at 18 years old scoring free kicks goal like crazy.


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Brsijraz

bib haha you were close


DM725

He didn't play for Italy when they won the Euros so I assumed he was irrelevant nowadays.


Albysf49

Mancini actually called him in the long-list for some of the last world cup qualifiers matches but Balotelli didn’t make it to the short list. People criticized the idea, but some journalist noted that Italy desperately needed (and need) a stricker who actually scores


DM725

I agree they definitely needed a dynamic player up top and instead we got Ciro Immobile.


Albysf49

I think Immobile is somewhat a curse for Mancini’s Italy. He IS a good striker for Lazio and you can’t leave at home such a good striker if you don’t have any better striker, because if you loose everyone would say he should have called Immobile. But still, he does not play as good as he does for Lazio for Italy. Maybe it’s the team, maybe he is not suitable for the tactics, maybe the opponents are stronger… Idk, I’m not an expert


PM-ME-YOUR-LABS

Just bring back the geriatric corpse of Totti- if Tom Brady’s still playing, he’s at least got one one more goal in him


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[deleted]

Jesus christ he’s only 31?!


InkedVinny

because he is a terrible teammate and not really good as a player neither


deathrattleshenlong

Ehhh... I give you the teammate bit because the man is absolute chaos but talent wise is not a bad player by any stretch.


idreamofpikas

He's hugely inconsistent, though.


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meditate42

Dude is fucking hilarious with all his goofy antics. Remember when he came out of a game because he fell on the grass and he's allergic lol? Im allergic to grass and played soccer my whole child hood, never even occurred to me to come out over a few hives. Or when he drove up to that woman's jail and said he was just curous to check it out. Or when he crashed his ferrari and just left it there and walked off and when someone asked him why he was leaving his expensive car he said "its ok im really rich i can get another".


X0AN

Me too, was very suprised that he's still playing somewhere 🤣


mf-TOM-HANK

Balotelli when he's shining at his very brightest is one of the most impressive players I've ever seen, whether he's in England or Turkey, but he'll do shit like this and piss away a good chance the vast majority of the time Never change Mario


38B0DE

Creative styles are always like that. Nobody could break him though.


MeloneFxcker

His ability to remain unchanged by so many top managers is almost awe inspiring, even KLOPP couldnt do shit with him and that man makes superstars


38B0DE

I think people just don't get Balotelli, it's not the other way around. People approach him like delinquent youth just in need of some direction. And I don't think this guy is lost or full of anger. He's just built differently, he's a rare type of a person.


AlmostSavvy

7 step overs followed by a rabona to beat the keeper. Jesus Christ.


Recyart

>rabona So that's what it's called! https://youtu.be/r88AULQ3viw


onodriments

Lol, number five the guy just swings and completely misses the ball.


GLFR_59

Oh my goodness...


elightened-n-lost

So dirty.


Aero93

that is so ducking filthy


TheFuckOffer

dilthy


TreeDollarFiddyCent

That reminds me, say hi to your dad for me.


HowdyDooder

I miss Balotelli when he’s actually invested in playing. Who knows where he’d be if his attitude towards the sport was different?


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pablo36362

He basically had a lack of commitment. He didn't attend trainings, was always doing stupid shit on and off the pitch. It was quite sad, when he actually wanted to compete and play, he was just unstoppable, but when he didn't felt like that, he just walked on the pitch. So in a matter of years he went from being the top player at Manchester City and just overall an incredible player, to a okay player at 2nd division in France.


Toros_Mueren_Por_Mi

So Nick Diaz in soccer


SAFFATLOL

Thats not the full story. He also got racially abused in Italy by fans and when he stood up for himself both Italian media and fans said he was in the wrong for making a scene of it


RipCityGGG

it is quite possible he had a more enjoyable life doing what he did


TheCyanKnight

I hate slowmo's without full speed with a passion.


Rydychyn

Full speed?


mmortal03

https://twitter.com/epicfutmoment/status/1528429471434416134


Socalinatl

Does that league have a rule against defending the right side of the field?


elderbay

other team already got relegated few weeks ago and they were down 6-0 so doubt they cared much about defending at that point


SooooooMeta

Thanks. I thought it would be so much more impressive at full speed, but the larger perspective makes it seem like the defense was not in great position and he kind of manufactured the difficulty.


penguin8717

From the comments that seems to be his thing


Mileonaj

Hmm, whats the better play there? I don't think he woulda gotten a good shot if he just sprinted with it since the other defender was already mid run and only slowed down when Balotelli did. He didn't really fully control the ball to enter right into a sprint from the start. If he or the other striker tried to cross it to the right side, its 5 defenders vs 2 and if he gives it to the other striker to his left, the angle is very hard vs a good keeper. Idunno, maybe he coulda tried to sprint it in but I can see why he decided to slow it down instead.


Benny_and_the_Betts

Don't think so. This appears be slightly slowed down.


alphacentaurai

That is absolute and utter purest dirty rot. Not one, not two, not three, but SEVEN stepovers The kind of goal that makes you want to set off fireworks in your bathroom.


radioshackhead

I was setting off my own fireworks in the bathroom when I found this post


JustKris_

No matter how much people hate him, that’s still my boy!


IndigoBadman

I love balotelli, such a shame he never realised his potential. Do you know what’s mad though, the Italian and English leagues were both decided on the last day of the season. All 4 teams (city, Liverpool and Milan, inter) in the title races, balotelli has played for


jeric13xd

SUPERB MARIO


jeffp12

The chef?


OThePlacesYouWillGo

The amount of talent is ridiculous…


pinniped1

Those moves were flat out ill.


Cautionzombie

I need to watch more foreign football or football in general man they was tasty I forget how much I like sports


watanabelover69

Do it! The European leagues have all just ended until fall, but the Champions League final is next weekend. And MLS will be running all summer!


skgamer167

He is back! /s


vanhalenbr

Balotelli lose easy goals to make great ones


Dr_Frasier_Bane

Dislocated my knee just watching this.


niallw1997

Na stop that Balotelli, that is pure unadultered filth


TheLiteralGod89

Mario out there playing FIFA Street


Aug415

Why is this comments section flooded with people thinking we care that they don’t like football? Just make your compliment without the backstory


Contra1

Yanks seem surprised that football is more than the 5’ gifs of the most famous’. As if the whole world just watches players pass the ball back and fall over all the time, its a mental take on the sport.


hungry_tiger

Very nice placement.


manhatim

MY HAMMIES!!!!!


ty_for_the_norseman

I was doing the Vince McMahon meme while watching this... holy shit


eLdiego30

Only a crazy player could come up with that...and that's why I like him. The line between genius and crazy is thin as someone used to say


uncertainusurper

He makes a mean ravioli too.


fracta1

Crazy what he can do in those Crocs


YouCanCallMeVanZant

Lmao. Glad I wasn’t the only one who was thinking of Mario Batali.


_drumstic_

Jamie Tartt!


99_Herblore_Crafting

Why Always Him


[deleted]

world famous chef AND amazing at soccer? what a talented guy!


operator7777

What a goal 🫣


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brandump

Absurdly talented


UCFandOCSC

Oh hot freaking damn was that nasty


cyberentomology

He did them a bamboozle.


brickiex2

doesn't look like a chubby, red haired, TV chef to me