Current Sion and former Inter, AC Milan, and Liverpool striker Mario Balotelli can still remember what coming through the ranks and growing at Inter meant to him.
Speaking in an interview on the YouTube channel of the Muschio Selvaggio podcast, the 32-year-old looked back on his time with the Nerazzurri and expressed his gratitude to the club for its role in forming him.
Balotelli spent his early years at Inter, where he played for the academy and then grew into a regular in the first team under Roberto Mancini and then Jose Mourinho.
It was Mancini who brought the Italian international to Man City, and then eventually he made the move to AC Milan, Liverpool, and then a number of other clubs.
“I don’t remember the first exact day when I arrived at Inter,” Balotelli looked back.
“I remember that I started training with the first team,” he continued, “I played for the Primavera but I trained with the first team.”
“The first match I played was in the Coppa Italia, I don’t remember which match it was.”
“In terms of the dressing room, a boy from the Primavera is going to suffer a bit of hazing when he gets to the first team, I’ve always had my character, so it was difficult to put up with it, but yeah – more than hazing, it was a show of respect.”
“I joined the Inter of Materazzi and Ibrahimovic after all.”
Asked who helped him grow most at Inter, Balotelli said that “Materazzi was the player who was always there to help me.”
He then described Materazzi as an “older brother” figure, noting that it was the 2006 World Cup winner who played a big role in setting him straight after an incident in which he overreacted to boos from the San Siro.
“I owe Inter a lot,” Balotelli said, “I loved them and I still love them very much, even if in my heart I’m a Milan fan, but I owe practically my entire career to Inter because they launched me and believed in me, I owe Moratti everything.”
Of the treble during the 2009-10 season, Balotelli said that “We won the league, the Coppa Italia, and the Champions League – I’ll tell you the truth, I didn’t believe in it, I didn’t think about it.”
“Winning everything seemed too big to be true, I saw it as a dream.”
Of what got the team over the line that season, Balotelli named “The group and the coach. Mourinho charges you up, he brings out the best in you, sometimes even the worst, but he brings out the best in you.”
“You don’t know it, but he brings out the best in you, he gets you fired up, he gets a reaction out of you and you want to tear everything up, that’s the reaction he wants,” he said of the current Roma coach.
