Mario Balotelli Video: Watch Man City Striker Fire a Disgraceful Attempt on Net

Well folks, in a sports culture that caters to high-profile superstars, Hollywood glitz and glamour, and self-promotion over team values, we have finally run across a situation that proves the exact opposite.

Showboating doesn’t always turn out with your name in lights.

Sure, seemingly every few weeks an athlete will make an amazing play that was obviously hammed up a little bit for the crowd or the cameras, and generally the highest honor that we bestow upon them is a spot on a SportsCenter Top 10 and a few YouTube highlight clips.

It’s probably well worth the extra effort on their parts.

But every now and then, an athlete will do something over the top and ridiculous and it ends up failing.

That is when we have every right to flip the script on the poor sap.

Instead of the usual praise and fanfare, our unspoken agreement gives us the rights to bash, belittle and all-around take advantage of whatever highlight clip or self-promotion that the athlete was trying to use to their advantage.

It’s only fair.

Here is the latest installation of athletes gone wild:

Mario Balotelli was disgracefully substituted out of Manchester City’s preseason match against the LA Galaxy.

Balotelli had a clean break on the goal and could have easily finished with any strike that he pleased. Instead, he decided to try some sort of 180, ball behind the legs shot off his back heel.

Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini almost instantly motioned for Balotelli to be taken out of the game. Balotelli didn’t appear to be too happy with the decision and decided throwing a fit, water bottle toss included, was in order before sitting down on the bench.

It would have been a great shot had it gone in, but unfortunately for Balotelli, the ball was several feet wide, and both his manager and his teammates seemed to be pretty upset about that fact.

Fortunately for us, we have the video: