If you caught my Group C preview, you saw that I said Mario Balotelli was both the rising star, and the tick tick boom. On Monday against Ireland, he showed you why I did that in the span of about 8 seconds.  First, there’s the goal.  What a goal it was. Straight from the corner, Balotelli times his kick perfect, and powers it into the net while falling down. Amazing strike. He gets up to do his usual “not happy just posing” celebration. We’ll talk about that after the video.

 

It didn’t take long for him to cause some trouble. Balotelli gets up, looks at someone off screen, and starts yelling what look like not so kind words, while twirling his finger. What he was saying, we don’t know.  But if I were a betting man, I’d say Balotelli was showing up his coach, clearly upset that despite having a bum knee, he didn’t get the start. He certainly made a great case. I think he’s earned a quarter finals top 11 spot, but I guess we’ll see.

What did you think of the goal? Do you think Super Mario should get the start? Let us know in the comments!