SoccerBlogs

AC Milan Jersey Crest (Google Creative Commons)

As the season is coming to an end, this year we saw both faces of AC Milan. We saw the good and the bad. The Rossoneri started the season off the wrong foot. This year AC had its worst start in 80 years. A team who is always a favorite was not reaching expectations; however, as the season developed the Rossoneri saw an incredible turnaround on their performances.

Your favourite trainwreck and overly-ballsy Italian striker, Mario Balotelli has done it again and this time, he's really pushing it!

According to Italian portal, Calcionews24, Balotelli has made a crude offer to all Real Madrid players, should they succeed in overturning the 4-1 battering from Borussia Dortmund at next week's return leg.

AC Milan's Mario Balotelli, El Shaarawy and French striker M'Baye Niang were pictured trying to "sleep" on a luggage rack on their train from Verona after a 1-0 win over Chievo two weekends ago.

However, yesterday afternoon, the wacky Balotelli decided that climbing on train seats for an optimum sleeping experience wasn't enough.

Mario Balotelli has once again left traditional and entered the world of unique this time with his custom-designed camouflage Nike Mercurials. The AC Milan and Italy star employed the services of Portuguese street artist MrDheo to create his custom shoes.

After putting a custom camouflage wrap on his Bentley during his time at Manchester City, the outspoken youngster has gone back to his love of the army-inspired print for his boots.

After a slow start in the Serie A, AC Milan have now sneaked in and positioned themselves in third place which in Serie A is good enough for Champions League qualifiers. Milan are only trailing second place Napoli by two points with only nine games left in the season.

This year has been a little bit turbulent for Milan's liking.

AC Milan Jersey Crest (Google Creative Commons)

Since joining AC Milan, Mario Balotelli has been nothing but superb. "Super Mario" as he is called by the media, was on a slump earlier this year with Manchester City. However, Balotelli had a "renaissance" when he moved back to Italy.

Nothing was clicking for Balotelli when this season started.

Napoli won as Cavani ended his goalless run

A week ago, having missed a penalty during the 2-0's defeat with Chievo, Edinson Cavani saw his torturous spell continuing, leaving the Uruguayan striker without scoring for 545 minutes. As the goal has dried up for Cavani, Napoli had won just one of their past six matches.

BY DAN KARELL

In his first Milan derby since his transfer to AC Milan in January, Mario Balotelli was racially abused by fans from his former club during the 1-1 match on Sunday evening.

Inter Milan fans at the San Siro waved bananas at Balotelli whenever he had possession of the ball, or was running near their section.

Barcelona next play AC Milan in the Champion's League on 20th February, and Barcelona, the home side, is the clear favourite at 4/7. AC Milan are priced at 6/1 with a draw at 3/1. However Massimiliano Allegri might have a trick up his sleeve in the form of recent signing Mario Balotelli, who recently was the subject of a high profile move from Manchester City to the Italian Club.

After having a fairly rocky start to the season, it seems like AC Milan are finally getting back on track to contend amongst the top of the Serie A. The Rossoneri's latest signing, Mario Balotelli managed to drag the team to a very lucky 2-1 victory over Udinese at the San Siro. With these three points, AC Milan has managed to catch up to fourth place rivals Inter Milan who suffered a 3-1 loss to Siena this weekend.

BY JUSTIN FERGUSON

AC Milan had high hopes for Mario Balotelli when they signed the troubled Italian striker away from Manchester City, but even the 'Rossoneri' couldn't have expected him to make such an immediate impact.

Balotelli enjoyed a dream debut for his new club, scoring both goals in AC's 2-1 win over Udinese on Sunday.

Mario Balotelli lived up to the hype, at least for a week, as he marked his Milan debut with two goals, one of which was a hugely controversial penalty with the last kick of the game
last-minute penalty which secured a 2-1 AC Milan victory.

For his first goal, El Shaarawy got to the by-line down the left and pulled back for Balotelli to control and smash an angled drive that bounced off the ground past Padelli.

By Chris Wright

Here's Mario with his new work togs, posing with Milan coach Massimiliano Allegri and Adriano Galliani at his official unveiling at the San Siro yesterday.

Balotelli also held a brief press conference, in which he had a few last things to say about English football:

"If I have to be honest English football is beautiful.

By DAN KARELL

When Mario Balotelli is playing, you never know what's going to happen.

Italy and Brazil kicked off the upcoming string of international matches with a bang, finishing the game with a scoreline of 2-2 at the Stade de Geneve in Geneva, Switzerland.

El Capitán is headed back to Dallas, turmoil in the United States National Team's locker room, March Sadness is underway, and World Cup Qualifying resumes, it's time for your Friday goals.

More after the jump:

Video: Real Madrid ping pong

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On Tuesday, reports of Mario Balotelli commissioning a statue of himself sternly flexing quickly blanketed the Internet. But according to Italian paper Corriere della Sera, an email written by Balotelli and sent by his brother, claims the tale of a Mario Balotelli statue to be housed in Mario Balotelli's house is false.

Milan earned an impressive 2-0 win against Barcelona in the first leg of their Champions League round of 16 tie in front of an overjoyed home crowd. The very best reaction came from Mario Balotelli (who couldn't play as he was cup tied to Man City), Robinho (who couldn't play due to injury) and friends as they stood pitchside and watched.

Mario Balotelli had his third goal in two matches for Milan to salvage a 1-1 draw against Cagliari, but he nearly had a great winner in stoppage time. In the 82nd minute, Balotelli scored his second important late penalty in as many matches for Milan and shushed the Cagliari supporters after he did so.

Warning: video contains NSFW language

AC Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi is supposed to be in prison right now, with a three-year ban from holding public office for committing tax fraud. Thanks to the unique way Italian politics operate, however, the 76-year-old might actually be Prime Minister for the fourth time at the end of the month, after his purchase of Mario Balotelli caused a surge of popularity in his latest election campaign.

Prior to Italy's friendly with the Netherlands in Amsterdam on Wednesday, manager Cesare Prandelli fielded questions from the media about the likely pairing of Mario Balotelli and Stephan El Shaarawy up front.

If his Milanese mohawk duo manage to lead Italy to a World Cup trophy in 2014, the 55-year-old proclaimed that he would also get a mohican haircut.

Mario Balotelli held his first press conference as a Milan played on Friday and near the end, he let off some steam on the English journalists who made the trip. In August 2011, Balotelli told Sky Italia that he didn't like the city of Manchester before eventually admitting that it wasn't as bad as he first thought a few months later.

Daniele De Rossi sparked Italy's fightback and Mario Balotelli scored a superb second-half equaliser as the Azzurri battled to a 2-2 draw in a match tonight between two of the best five teams in the world in Geneva today.

Luiz Felipe Scolari's side looked poor in their 1-0 defeat by England in February, but they jumped out to a commanding 2-0 half-time lead through goals by Fred and Oscar.