@Gil,Zealous says he lacks the 'mentality' of a champion and he's right.He's not hard working,not dedicated,not consistent and definitely not a leader on the pitch.Just some occasional moments of genius and just for that has developed a cult following.Seriously how overrated he got after that Germany performance ?
And Balo's contribution to the CL win is just about equal to Borriello's contribution in our scudetto success

Dribbling doesnt alone means doing stepovers and running at defenders.Zlatan's close control dribbling is superb.I dont see none of those qualities in Balotelli.Only area where both can be compared is shooting technique and first touch otherwise Ibra wipes the floor with him in just about everything else.

Ibra definitely has had his douchebag moments like the Van Der Vaart incident,like mentioned,his beef with Pep and to a lesser extent that fight he had with Onyewu(I believe his douchebaggery is highly exaggerated) yet was always relied upon when it came to performances on the pitch.And that is why all his other antics are ignored and not crucified like Balotelli is right now.

why is balotelli rated so highly? he is very talented but its not like he shows up half the time to use it, just moments of brilliance here and there, i would love to see balo perform for majority of a season in top form tbh, before he can even compare to ibra now or future.

sportsczy wrote:No he wasn't Arqi...  Zlatan had already established himself as someone that could be relied on at 23.  It was his third year at Juve under Lippi then Capello.  I mean, can you imagine Balo surviving 3 months under Capello or Lippi let alone several years

Just wanted to clarify that you are wrong there. Lippi never managed Ibra. He was signed when Capello came. Marcelo Lippi left us after 2003-2004 season, and Ibra joined us at the start of 2004-2005.

Ah ok.  I wasn't sure.  I knew Lippi left around that time and Ibra didn't join until very shortly after the season started... i couldn't remember if it was Lippi's last year or not.

Even better.  Capello all the way then.  Shows that Ibra's lack of discipline was always overstated.  If you play for Capello, that means you can accept authority... end of.

Too soon , for both sides to tell . All i'm going to say is even if he can never reach Ibra's level , which is a likely scenario , he most certainly won't end up the complete scrub some here would like to see him become , or hope , or believe he will.

Balo has impressive characteristics and traits to his game , making him a forward who could function in many roles up front , granted that the team around him is of a certain level and can work properly with him , so his plays actually turn into something in the end. I say this as an indication that this season didn't reveal much to us about Balotelli , other than the known fact that he can't carry a team to real success yet , which is completely normal tbh.

Balo , for me , is definitely not the next Ibra. But that could never stop a talented player like Balotelli to become something of his own. I am pretty sure when he gets excited with the potential of a team , when he really cares to achieve stuff with his team , he will become a rare player , just like Ibra did with time. Having said that , i don't expect such a thing anytime soon , because first thing first , he needs a competitive team behind him in order to do anything and in order for him to essentially go through the process of reaching an elite level in football , he will need Milan or whatever his next team may be , to be at an elite level.

Comparing stuff between Balotelli and Ibrahimovic right now is just not a good point to discuss , imo.. certainly not a viable one , one is at the peak of his carreer while the other has more years than his current active ones. There's time yet.

more like a Cassano to me... very similar. Extremely talented, the big attacking hope for Italy NT... and due to mentality issues, never got it together.

If you want a non-Italian comparison... Anelka.

sportsczy wrote:Ah ok.  I wasn't sure.  I knew Lippi left around that time and Ibra didn't join until very shortly after the season started... i couldn't remember if it was Lippi's last year or not.

Even better.  Capello all the way then.  Shows that Ibra's lack of discipline was always overstated.  If you play for Capello, that means you can accept authority... end of.

Fair Enough. About the Capello part, he was a sucker for Ibra. I don't know the genesis but Capello always something against Alex Del Piero. ADP was at his prime at the time, but Capello always had him on the bench and played Ibra in his place alongside Trezequet. No way on earth was Ibra better than ADP at that time. Del Piero was miles ahead of him in every department. Ibra was barely out of diapers in terms of his career, and yet Capello played the Swede ahead of prime ADP. Things got frustrating for ADP to the extent he started thinking of leaving. I remember the fans at the Delle Alpi getting irritated by Capello's mistreatment of captain ADP and showed their feelings about the matter very clear by booing Capello and coming up banners and chants against him even though Juve was winning games for fun although with an ugly football.

This ADP issue plus Capello's ugly football at Juve and his failure to take Juve beyond the quarters in CL despite having what was largely believed as the strongest squad in Europe at the time, is probably why Juve fans never liked Capello and don't rate him up to this days. Lippi, instead, is will forever be revered and remembered with glowing nostalgia.

What is this Mourinho's guidance bullshit lol?

Ibra had 22 goals and 13 assists in 34 games under Mancini in 2007-08 lol.

For starters the Cassano comparison doesn't even make any sense as Balotelli doesn't even have half of Cassano's talent.

As for Ibra he doesn't even have a quarter of his talent lol.... while we are on the subject of playmaking when have we ever seen Balo even look like he's going to create 10 goals a season? he's not even in Ibra's league and never will be.

That's without mentioning that Ibra actually despite his trollish demeanor actually is a professional and all he cares about is winning and has the ability to put a team on his back when has Balo ever done that with more than 5 games in his career lol?

Another problem with Balo is not just work rate is that he doesn't move off the ball to create space for himself and others AT ALL.... Ibra may not Tevez like when it comes to working hard but the dude knows how to move off the ball and does it constantly.

Gil this fad of overhyping players which people criticize to get you a reaction is getting old, Balotelli has no business being mentioned in the same sentence as Ibra.

Think you're being a little harsh on Balo Mole. I mean we're not talking about Djemba Djemba here ffs

Balo is clearly capable of playing at a high level. Unfortunately for him he doesn't care about winning enough to truly reach his potential.

Tbf half of Cassano's talent is pretty damn good still.

Not saying he's a scrub but the issue is that he definitely lacks the fundamentals Ibra has while being less talented in pretty much every facet.

His talent isn't comparable to these players IMO and what's more he cares even less about the game he's paid to play.

Cassano in the sense ,he takes the same direction as him and wastes most of his prime,not comparing him in terms of talent.Cassano is clearly more talented than him.

Cassano is almost twice as much (no empirical data here) talented than both Balotelli and Zlatan if you finely measure what he is really capable of. As good as his career has been it is an iota of what was expected of him and how it was supposed to turn out given he could have been atop the footballing world if he actually took his career seriously.

Yeah exactly....  players who think that talent alone is enough and don't do anything else and overinflated egos despite having achieved absolutely nothing.  At least in Cassano and Anelka cases, they had that level of talent where they did ok despite being idiots.  Balo doesn't even do ok ffs.

And yeah, Anelka was that talented. When he was at Arsenal, they basically felt that the next R9 had arrived and he showed it both at club and NT briefly. What a waste.

Anelka was huge for Madrid against Bayern in 2000. Dude was a pure idiot but that year he was pure clutch when he needed him to be.

Zealous wrote:Anelka was huge for Madrid against Bayern in 2000. Dude was a pure idiot but that year he was pure clutch when he needed him to be.

Similar to Balo in this case... that one game carried his reputation for a couple of years just like Balo's game against Germany. PSG bought him for 25 mil Euros (huge money at the time) and, despite being a PSG youth product, he acted exaclty like Balo is at Milan: Sense of entitlement with no end product to show. Scored 20 goals in 1,5 seasons and was sent off on loan to Liverpool during the winter because he was such a cancer...

Gil wrote:You guys say he won a title like he was important for most of those.

Wtf am I reading?

He was the main man for Ajax wins in 02-03 and 03-04. Ibra won the league for Inter in 2007-08 and 08-09, both seasons his goals were the difference. He almost singlehandedly carried Milan to the title in 10-11. In 2009-10 his winner in the Clasico was ultimately the 3 point difference that won Barca the league over Madrid. He's single handedly winning it for PSG this season as he did last season.

The next Recoba.

Apperantly, people think Ballo won't grow up, for some reason. Also it's not like Ballo is that distant from Ibra either.

Ibra has brainwashed people into thinking he is TOO good. Don't see why Balotelli cannot reach his level. Calma.

The next Quaresma.

ExtremistEnigma wrote:Ibra has brainwashed people into thinking he is TOO good. Don't see why Balotelli cannot reach his level. Calma.

How did he "brainwash" people to think that?

By being clutch to every team he played for bar Barca in the second half.

Lord Spencer wrote:

ExtremistEnigma wrote:Ibra has brainwashed people into thinking he is TOO good. Don't see why Balotelli cannot reach his level. Calma.

How did he "brainwash" people to think that?

By being clutch to every team he played for bar Barca in the second half.

some pool fans think suarez is on ibra level as we speak, so balo will catch up in no time .

Robespierre wrote:The next Recoba.

Swear to the living God I thought the same thing about Balotelli. Re: Cassano, I was of the opinion that he would have been as good as how Totti is. Sadly, it didn't turn out how I nor he probably wanted. Re: the actual topic, meh, I don't see any real similarities honestly though I firmly agree with Adit, S and Che on the issue of Ibra's attitude. The man is a dick and a douche. Fantastic footballer though, phew...

Balotelli entering drama queen mode in mixed zone, quarreling with a journalist, saying he doesnt understand why he was subbed out...

let me clue him in, Balo, you are shit

If someone like Costa had half the talent of Balo, he would be a god like CF. pathetic player.