Mario Balotelli…Italian?

This dude closed the quarter-finals against Germany with two goals.   When I first saw him…I thought…if he’s Italian…then so am I.   I began to think…if he was in America…what would his hyphenated “classification” be?   America is big on hyphenated citizens!   So Mr. Balotelli…if you ever immigrated to America you may be “classified” as either:

• an Italian-American…who happens to be black
• an African-American…who happens to be Italian or…
• just another nigger from Africa without a bonafide birth certificate!

Mr. Balotelli made the front page of today’s New York Times sports section.   After reading the article…my thoughts of me being Italian if he was, quickly faded away.   Per the NY Times article:

“Balotelli dedicated his two goals against Germany to his adoptive mother. He sought her out after the match and gave her a kiss. He was born in Sicily, named Mario Barwuah, the son of immigrant parents from Ghana in West Africa. Intestinal problems became so severe, his birth father has said, that young Mario was baptized in fear that he might die. At age 2, he was sent to live near Brescia, Italy, with white foster parents, Francesco and Silvia Balotelli. Eventually, Mario took their name and, at 18, in 2008, he became an Italian citizen, eligible to play for its national soccer team.”

"His personal life has been as unsettled as his professional career, one perhaps influencing the other. As he gained citizenship, Balotelli accused his birth parents of having abandoned him in a hospital and having tried to reconnect only after he gained fame as a professional player.?”

If you watched today’s Union of European Football Association’s (UEFA) finals…you know that he wasn’t able to pull it off for the finals! Espana-4 versus Italia-0 (My German daughter and my German son-in-law got me into this stuff!) No vuvzelas this time though!