The BalotelI Paradox: Is The Answer Really That Difficult?

Regardless of your opinions on the man, the memes were absolute quality.

No it's not. That's the short answer.

Many will try to disagree, and for those of you that want to know why, keep on reading.

There is beauty in pragmacy. There is beauty in things just clicking. All the parts of a train working in harmony, providing that rhythmic chugging sound as the locomotive transports commuters across the country. Or when the sun lines up with the city blocks of Manhattan. We like patterns. We enjoy things that appear to work effortlessly. Like the smoothness of a brand new car. Does it have to be flash? Not at all.

Think of all the amazing teams to have dominated football as the years have gone by. Each one would have had a star or two. For the sake of this example, let's examine Johan Cruyff and Ajax of the 1970s. We know Cruyff without Ajax, but do we know Ajax without Cruyff? To my generation, there appears to be a split between those that know Cruyff as a Barcelona legend, and those that know him as an Ajax legend. The truth is he was incredible at both, but let's have a look into this. Football is a team game. Success by its very nature is a team sport. Why were Ajax so successful and revolutionary in the 1970s? They had a great coach and a great squad. What was a brilliant side, including other legends of football, legends in their own right, of Aarie Haan, Arnold Muhren, and Johan Neeskens (among many others). Many even think that Neeskins was more of a genius than Cruyff. On top of that is the visionary of Rinus Michels. Some of these names are either sadly forgotten, or exist just within the realms of football nerdom.

As a kid trying to learn more about football and fuel this obsession, I thought I'd take a look at the amazing Ajax team, and especially their talisman and hero, Cruyff. All I saw was passing. Pass, pass, pass, goal. That's boring. Where were the tricks? The flicks? The nutmegs? The top corner volleys? The Tony Yeboah strikes? All this passing and moving was enough to put a young boy to sleep. Not until I was much, much older, did I begin to appreciate the beauty of it all. They still executed tricks and flicks, and scored some sublime goals, but their movement was hypnotic. The positioning and formation just cannot be understood by an egocentric child that wants to see screamers. It used to wind me up when Arsenal kept getting so many goals in the Match of the Day Goal of the Month competition. "All he's done is pass it into an empty net from six yards. I could do that!" Is what I would shout at my TV. What I failed to appreciate was the slick move that allowed for them to place a striker unmarked with an open goal. That's collective genius. It was often nothing fancy. Simple. Brilliant. Brilliantly simple.

The same can be seen with the Barcelona team of the modern era. Tiki taka is lauded as boring, and at times it can be. Watching them destroy opponents 6-0 without appearing to break sweat, while making passing moves of a sequence of 152, can put you to sleep. It's not the hustle and bustle of the English leagues. Smash it long and fight for it. That intensity appeals to our primal urges. Us English do not take a cerebral enough approach to the game, and although we are truly fortunate to be able to support five national and professional leagues, I don't think we truly appreciate the game in front of us. I don't think conceptually that we are able to. I've seen players booed for passing the ball backwards. If that's the only option, then do it. Better to retain than to lose needlessly. The same can be said about crossing situations. "Launch it in the box!" can be screamed from the terraces. We just associate the ball being in wide areas as needing a cross. It's wide, so it now needs to be whipped into the middle. Crossing has almost become obsolete. The amount of crosses needed to score one goal has increased over the decades. Allardyce and Pulis know this. Long ball isn't about accuracy, it's about frequency. Think about trying to put your keys into the slot while dark. You miss, so you try again. You miss, so you try again. You keep missing. You then become frustrated and furiously jab your keys at the slot until they go in. If you were bright enough, you would have turned the light on and put it in first go without any worries. As long as your key goes in the slot, you shouldn't care too much about the method. The same can be said for scoring a goal.

The difference between a Stoke goal and a Barcelona goal is the amount of passes necessary. Both teams are doing what they can to stifle the opposition's chance of scoring (either booting it really far away from your goal, or keeping the ball for so long the other team can't score). Stoke will launch it long, win the knock down, score from inside the box. Barcelona will keep the ball for ages, get it into the attacking third, perhaps lose the ball, press high and effectively, win the ball, score from inside the box. Messi, supposedly known for his amazing skills that kids are always trying to emulate, actually does that very rarely. It's a very small part of his game. He dribbles, he turns, he runs with the ball, he feints, he changes direction. He's never looking to embarrass his opponent or to show off, he just does what he can to give his team the best chance of success, Messi and Ronaldinho are two players we associate with sublime skill, where Messi is brilliantly simple, Ronaldinho was always flamboyant and magical. His skills or goals would have us talking about them and reenacting them for months. We'd all be trying to do that. Next time you're in a 1v1, try and go round them like Ronaldinho did, or control the ball out of the air like Ronaldinho did, or play an outside of the boot reverse pass like Ronaldinho did. We can identify that as brilliant, because it is a clear action that we can isolate and replicate. With Messi? What did Messi do? He picked the ball up on the halfway line, feinted past the first defender, dribbled inside, beat two more defenders by dropping the shoulder, played a one-two with Iniesta, and then side-foots it into the corner, past the onrushing keeper. If we were to isolate all of the components that Messi used for his goal, we are left with short passing, basic dribbling skills, and an easy finish. Even the shot, kids would prefer to smash it into the top corner than roll it into the bottom one. And so what do we replicate?

Cristiano Ronaldo is perhaps the most replicable footballer across the globe. Until recently, no one ever talked about what Messi did in private. No tattoos, no stupid hair, no stupid outbursts. That has changed a little now. Ronaldo seems destined to have lived the celebrity lifestyle. He's rich, famous, talented, and wants us to know it. Nothing he ever does appears to be humble or quiet. Kids can copy what he does. They can copy his unique hairstyles, try to do his insane tricks, try to replicate his special free-kick technique (though very few get past that ridiculous stance he does). They do all this, and think it makes them more like Ronaldo, barring just the huge lack of talent. Wearing the same boots as your hero makes you nothing like him. If you want to be like him, put in the same amount of hard work and deep practice that he did as a child.

Because you're an idiot.

One of my favourite observations on Twitter was in regards to Thomas Muller; "If he had tattoos and f****t hair, we'd think he was one of the best in the world." You don't win what Muller has won, and be top goalscorer at two consecutive World Cups if you're not a special talent. He keeps himself to himself, and just goes about his business. There's no scandal. There's no celebrity. He's just a good footballer.

What this whole argument boils down to can be described as Balotelli v Dzeko when they both played for Man City. Balotelli was constantly in the headlines for doing something stupid, be it setting off fireworks in his bathroom, fighting with teammates and coaching staff, or lifting up his shirt to reveal slogans at Old Trafford. Dzeko never did any of that. Balotelli would generate such interest in himself for all the wrong reasons, and then would justify it with one sublime bit of skill, which he would then dine out off of for months after. Dzeko was hard working and pragmatic, and apparently uninspiring. He had a normal haircut, and was not prone to tantrums. When Balotelli was left out of the squad, all Hell would break loose. He'd act like such a petulant little child, and cause so many problems. If Dzeko was left out, he'd come off the bench and score, and reiterate that he's just doing his best for the team.

Here are some sublime goals. Check out not just the quality, but the variety.

If Dzeko went a few games without a goal, the press would be heavily critical. He can't shoot. He's just an immobile big man with a poor touch and no left foot. Despite his impressive scoring records, and his range of goals scored, the criticism kept coming. This love for Balotelli, mostly generated by the press and perpetuated by starstruck football fans, became almost delusional at one point. That one game that one time when Balotelli was amazing against Germany, that proves that the man is a genius. Right? Whereas Dzeko had been the top goalscorer in qualifying for that competition. He'd also previously broken several season scoring records while playing for Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga. For many, that one game that Balotelli played incredibly, was far better than Dzeko's track record of high level consistency.

Apparently Balotelli has the power to get us out of our seats. So Man City fans were sitting down with mild applause when Dzeko scored the equaliser in the 90th minute against QPR on that famous day in 2012? And I suppose Wolfsburg fans were also sitting for the 66 goals that Dzeko scored in 111 appearances for the club, while becoming the club's all time leading goalscorer, a member of the league's most successful strike partnership of all time, and helping deliver Wolfsburg's first ever league title. Imagine the size of those quads and bums if they had actually stood up every time Dzeko delivered.

If that last video wasn't convincing enough, as it was just

one lucky season with Wolfsburg, this video is taken with

three top teams, in three top leagues, over many years.

After a while, it began to become apparent to many. Balotelli was actually a glorified penalty taker. Ill-disciplined, obnoxious, disrespectful, immature, and stupid, things haven't really worked out for him since. No press is bad press, and so the publicity Balotelli had generated for himself allowed for his good moments to be heavily publicised and popularised. They made the highlight reels. We talked about it because Balotelli was involved. I listened to countless talkshows about the man, and yet whenever Dzeko came up, it was only to note his inconsistency. What inconsistency? He scored 50 goals in 130 appearances. There was a fifteen game dry spell in his last season at the Etihad, but who hasn't had bad periods? Balotelli likewise scored 20 goals in 54 games for Man City, so a similar record, but a hell of a lot games less played for what was a similar time frame. Reading his bio however, one notes the amount of red cards, violent conducts, suspensions, and even fines leading to tribunal that Balotelli was at the heart of. Four red cards in one season is far more consistent than one goal (a penalty) in his final season in Manchester.

His personal life is full of incidents, bust-ups, and just stupid decisions. He has more cars than trophies. So many coaches have fallen out with him. So many have stated he has talent, but is just an idiot. He does crazy things without justification, and is trying to be accepted in circles outside of football. To many coaches, this may seem familiar. We've all encountered players like this - the insanely talented but terribly disciplined. But are they actually that good? As with Balotelli v Dzeko, the stats show that Dzeko was by far the better player, with a much more positive contribution to the club, even though your average man on the street will tell you that Balotelli is miles ahead. "Yeah but on his day he's unplayable!" Let's get one thing straight before we move on. The word unplayable is in regards to the pitch. We cannot play on the pitch due to the water, mud, needles etc. An injured player is also unplayable. We do not have the ability to play this player due to their injuries, that are preventing them from entering the field. Unplayable. So yes, Balotelli was often unplayable, usually due to his own ill-discipline, getting himself regularly sent off for violent conduct. His suspensions made him unplayable.

Of course the English language is often molested by those within football. What your average man on the street will mean is that he is so good, it's often impossible to play against him. That, again, is untrue. Flashes of brilliance do not mean that he is just one spark away from consistency. Just look at Theo Walcott. Following that hat-trick against Croatia in 2008, everyone thought that would be it. Suddenly, he wouldn't be 1v1 with the keeper and pass it straight to his hands. Suddenly his crosses were going to beat the first man. Nope. Inconsistency is consistent. He would consistently play terribly. And all this "On his day" rubbish. I once went up front and scored five goals. That was my day. No one could stop me on that day. I did nothing wrong on that day. I was a genius on that day. If you play enough games, you come closer to the possibility that one day it's all going to go right for you. This isn't suddenly something clicking and it all going right from that point onward like some kind of epiphany. This is the planets aligning once every ten thousand years. It's the same concept as winning the lottery. Every time you lose, you are one step closer to the time that you are going to win, but winning the lottery once doesn't mean that you've now cracked the formula and that you're going to be winning every week.

Do you remember this one? Acted like an idiot, substituted,

then threw a tantrum. And who's that big Bosnian No.10

that did the wonderful piece of skill to start the move and

who was then right alongside him for the tap-in?

On his day, on any given day, Balotelli had the potential to act like a complete idiot and get himself into needless, avoidable trouble. On his day, Edin Dzeko was going to perform well, work hard, and commit selfless acts for the benefit of the team.

Last season I coached at a team that had a volatile young boy. He possessed some ability, no doubt, but it very rarely came out. He was an apathetic teenager that was having problems at home. Imagine if every white kid from the suburbs that experienced their parents going through a divorce suddenly became a self-centred little prick, and causing problems at every opportunity. Life as we know it would cease to exist, as chaos would descend upon the world.

Rule 1. Don't bring your problems to training. It's no one else's fault, it's no one else's problem. Don't bring it here and let if affect the team. You leave your problems at home.

For the one or two hours that kids spend playing football with their friends, it should be a happy time. A carefree time. Get the calendar our and you can count just how many more hours the teenagers will have of playing football with their friends in this carefree environment, before having to get a job and start paying their own way in life. It's all so hard.

Rule 2. I am not your therapist. If you're going to act like a idiot, you can go home. I do not care about you or your problems. Be up front and tell me you're struggling, and I can help you deal with it, but I am not a fully trained mental health professional. If you're going to be disruptive, you're going to go sit in the box.

The manager of this team kept telling me that the boy has ADHD and needs some support. As tragic as it is to suffer this largely overprescribed, somewhat invented illness, there are a few things that are not characterised as ADHD. ADHD is not being able to sit still, struggling with attention, and fidgeting. It's not swearing, fighting, and tantrums.

Rule 3. If you break the rules, you are gone. Everyone is treated the same. If you decide to act like a little kid, you will be treated like one. I would do the same to everyone else if they were consistently behaving this way. You've had your opportunities to change, and you've had your final warning.

The manager, eventually, kicked this kid off the team. Unfortunately it wasn't until my final two sessions that I got to coach without him, although he did have frequent absences due to wah wah wah. I would have gotten rid of him nine months prior. There are many red flags. His lack of effort and lack of respect were two obvious flags that smacked me right in the face. He didn't want to do anything. And one session he told me to fuck off. Another training session he took his shirt off and stormed home. Another one he stormed off home because no one was passing to him (he was stood in the corner, complaining like a little kid about how no one was passing to him, so definitely wasn't available for a pass, and due to his idiotic nature, the other kids didn't like him, and so would play on it). The manager had many last chance chats with him, and I swear kicked him off the team about three or four times before he actually kicked him off the team. While this is happening, the other boys are losing respect for all concerned and are becoming disillusioned.

Rule 4. If you make rules, stick to them. This goes for everyone.

My authority is completely undermined if the team is told that they need to work hard in training, this boy acts like a clown, and is then picked for the game at the weekend. If I remove him from the session, or put him into the 'Idiot Box' as we called it, the manager would come along, talk to him, sometimes force a half-meant apology, or even worse, just tell him to go join in again. That's like asking the other parent to get a yes after the first one gave a no. The boy knew that the manager wasn't going to be firm with him, and that the manager's decision was above mine. This kind of idiocy turned other boys away. They didn't want to be on this kid's team. Was he actually that good? As far as I could tell, he was Balotelli. He had the stupid hair, volatile nature, and unrelenting confidence in his own ability that often wasn't justified. Due to other coaching commitments, I could rarely go to their games. Probably about three times in the season did I hear that the kid was sublime. I did hear of a red card for kicking out at a player, and also another shirt off storm off situation. Following the red card, the manager bent over backwards to reschedule league games so that the suspension wouldn't land on the important match. I didn't get it. The manager was an enabler. The message being sent to the boy was you can act like a clown all you want, and I will wave my magic wand and make everything okay. If that boy didn't like training, there was an inquisition. My trust was shattered when that happened. You're believing this spoilt tantrum throwing idiot, who regularly half efforts it, starts fights, and is rude and obnoxious, over me? There was also a possibility of there being a conflict of interests regarding the boy's mum and the manager.

Only a child would argue over who takes the free-kick.

So what was going on? If we ignore the conflict of interests for a moment, as we had no clear evidence of that, let's just examine what was happening. Clearly the manager placed some value in the boy's ability. He definitely was not the best player on that team. Only the boy and the manager thought that. There were probably three or four players in the team that had better technical skills than this kid, and all of them worked harder and brought a better attitude than him. You may think you're good, but you're pretty useless if you're not playing (either due to pointless red cards or storming off the pitch). My opinion is that he was so obsessed with winning that he believed he could paper over the cracks, hoping that everything would be okay, and that they'd keep winning games, and then win the league. The ship was sinking. There was an idiot sized hole in the hull, and the other boys could not remove the water from the deck quick enough. It's almost like the manager put his fingers in his ears, closed his eyes, and began shouting "LA LA LA LA LA I'M NOT LISTENING" while everyone else tried to operate at full capacity. It just can't happen.

It was that obsession with winning. Why did the manager want to win so badly? It blinded him to the reality of the situation. You need to let go of players like that and move on. I think due to some circumstances in his personal life, the manager needed a self-esteem boost, and to feel important and wanted. He associated winning games of U15 grassroots football with being important, when in reality, he was such a top bloke, that all the parents and kids loved him for repeatedly giving up his time, for no reward, without having any kids of his own in the team. Those selfless acts are what make him such a brilliant person.

It's hard to make tough decisions. Breakups and funerals are two things you never want to become good at. Only with experience can we begin to have those tough conversations rather than shying away from it or hoping it magically disappears. Maybe he didn't want to endure the storm that would follow. Maybe, in his own twisted mind, he'd believed that this boy was truly important to the cause of winning the league, due to a couple good goals he scored once. This boy had none of the characteristics of a champion, yet the manager was prepared to defend all of his inexcusable actions 'til death.

There's an argument to doing extra to keep your best player happy, which I can see, though it's not something I necessarily agree with. We are all equal, and rules are rules. If you're going to act like a clown, you're not going to be in my team. I used to hate going to training with this team, because if that boy didn't want to work, he wouldn't, which would compromise the intensity of the session, which would make the others bored, and then we'd just be wasting our time for two hours. I couldn't punish him as I'd be undermined, and I couldn't reach him through positive reinforcement (encouragement and praise of the good things he did) because 1. he never did anything good, and 2. he had no respect for authority. If I were to tell him he'd done well at something, he'd stop doing it to spite me, because he was that much of a idiot.

These problem kids are not our responsibility to deal with or to change. If at the age of fifteen he is acting like this, in two hours a week contact time, no amount of strict punishment or constant praise is going to change him. The damage has already been done. It's too deep rooted to change, and unfortunately the young lad is going to be haunted by problems for the rest of his life. All because it was someone else's fault. Someone else had to deal with it. Someone else was to blame.

Should I be giving this kid the extra time and attention? Of course not. The other kids are there, wanting to learn and to improve, and are having their time wasted by a kid like that. They don't want to see constant battles between the player and the coach. They don't want to have to stand there and listen while you remind the idiot of a few things. They want to play. They are paying their money, and deserve to be coached well. That can't happen with such a disruptive influence in there. It's not the fault of the other kids, nor is it my fault. This kid could be sparked off by it being cold. I swear, one night he was having a tantrum because it was cold. We all know the best thing to do when it's cold is to stand there complaining about the cold. Bringing a jacket or moving about apparently wouldn't have helped the situation.

Is it worth keeping hold of an idiot if they are capable of producing the goods? It does depend to what extend their behaviour goes, and how often they produce the goods. To be as good as Messi or Ronaldo, you probably won't be acting like an idiot anyway, as it cuts into the practice time necessary to be an outstanding footballer. The paradox is, only if you're that good will you be able to justify acting like an idiot. And you know what? Those two don't! (apart from Ronaldo's crybaby faces, and the removal of his shirt before the ball hits the back of the net). They work hard, they listen, they get stuck in, they track back, they defend. And in the case of the primadona, if he was actually good enough to justify his behaviour, he'd be being an idiot at a better team in a better league. So in reality, the answer to that question is NO, as it is so incredibly unlikely.

The culture of a team is so important, and that comes from the coaches and the most vocal players. What you allow to go unpunished is louder and has more resonance than the things you praise and the things you say. You can talk about harmony and togetherness all you want, but if you see players whining and don't clamp down on it, your word means nothing, and whining has just become acceptable within your team. Players, as they are ordinary people, will always find ways to cut corners. If you let your star player slack off, the rest of the team will slack off. If you then punish one but not the other, you lose your credibility as coach.

If you allow someone to keep operating as a Balotelli, it just comes down to lack of management. Either you don't know how to deal with the situation, or you are too scared to deal with the situation. As counter-intuitive as it might be, it's usually your best option. Man City had invested heavily in in Mario Balotelli, and so could perhaps be more patient than others, giving him the time, care, and attention needed. That could all happen behind the scenes, as football is his career, and he is being paid millions. The club would have that leverage. At other levels, they don't have that resources. A lot of clubs operate with just a couple people in charge, and so cannot afford the time to help the player in that way. I can't do it. If I'm seeing a kid just once or twice a week, there's nothing I can do to have a deep-rooted effect on their behaviour, I'm not a therapist, it's not my responsibility, it's not my problem, and the other kids (paying members) don't deserve to have their precious time wasted. It may sound like we are turning our backs on them, but it's true. We are. If you're going to be an idiot all the time, what do I actually owe you? What is your leverage? Why should I even care?

Even at professional clubs with all the resources in the world, these players can be like a cancer. Get rid of them. Remove them as soon as you notice. Don't try and reason with them. If they were capable of being reasoned with, someone would have done it to them by now. Probably three or four coaches ago at one of their many former clubs. While you're trying to calm them down and get them to stop being needlessly sent off, other players are being turned off the club, are losing respect for you, and the tension begins to rise. You can't please everybody, so don't try.

It's one of the worst things in the world to see wasted potential. In any walk of life. I've argued with players and wasted countless fruitless hours on lost causes. I am older and wiser now. I had a girl last year who was a very talented player, but she used to mess about, never turned up, and tried starting fights. The club had high hopes for her, hoping she'd mature and become an asset to us. That never happened, and she was gone. Last I heard she was still looking for a club. Keep leaving or being kicked out of places, and soon your reputation as a bad egg will grow, and no one will take you on.

One must adopt a simple philosophy; tell your team to not act like idiots (with the utmost clarity as to what constitutes as idiocy) and then remove them if they are idiots. No exceptions. Be fair and genuine, of course, but stick to your guns. These people often don't see a problem with their actions, and you certainly won't be getting through to them. Managing is like fighting hundreds and thousands of tiny little battles. You have to work out which battles are important (prioritising), at what expense each battle will come (time and effort), and what the benefits are of winning each battle (risk and reward). Then choose wisely.

If we try to apply the Balotelli Paradox to other areas of life, we can see that it actually makes no sense to us. It's just that with football, we cling onto the hope of it not being true because we want to win. If someone you cared about had an abusive partner, you'd tell them to leave. If you had a useless colleague, you'd want them fired. It's the equivalent of "Mate, your new girlfriend's such a cow!" "Yeah mate, but she's gorgeous." Or try "Your husband is a racist old man, that makes repulsive comments about his daughter, and will probably destroy the country" "Yeah, but he's rich." It doesn't sit well with us, does it. Get rid of them.