THAT WAS SUPER MARIO

Balotelli's brilliant double sank Germany and sent Italy into the final

OCCASIONALLY, a player comes along in football who is impossible to fathom.

From Eric Cantona to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, they carry many of the same characteristics - brooding and outspoken.

Mario Balotelli arrived in the Premier League as a young man showing those traits but also one other thing that Cantona and Ibrahimovic possessed. He exhibited flashes of a magic touch with a ball.

He signed for Manchester City in 2010 on his 20th birthday, and so began a journey of exquisite passes and goals, mixed with red cards (four in two and a half seasons) on the field, and mayhem off it.