Oh, Mario. We get a lot of mileage out of the antics of various “crazy” footballers, but none have the variation of range that makes Mario Balotelli so damn compelling.  This weekend, the stupid hat-wearing, iPad-toting, prison-visiting, lazy backheel-attempting, parking ticket-accumulating, inadvertant mafia-associating Manchester City striker produced what may very well be the perfect metaphor for his flawed brilliance: nearly burning down his house while playing with fireworks the day before inspiring Manchester City to their biggest derby win since Eisenhower was President.

Mario and some friends had been shooting fireworks out of the bathroom window of his rented house in the early hours of Saturday morning (as you do) when one of the rockets accidentally ignited his bathroom towels, sparking a massive blaze that did substantial damage to his Cheshire home.

Not only was Mario completely unhurt, police had to prevent him from going back inside to get some items he wanted to retrieve, because it’s not like footballers need functioning lungs or anything, right?

That alone would have been an incredible story, but Mario’s weekend wasn’t over yet, not by a long shot.

No, the very next day, Man City manager Roberto Mancini decided that Mario should be in the team away to Manchester United, likely the biggest challenge City would face all year. And so Mario started. And being Mario, Mario scored a goal. And being Mario, he was wearing this shirt underneath his Man City jersey

(image via EPL Talk)

And being Mario, he scored another, his fifth league goal of the season, as City went on to defeat United 6-1, United’s worst home defeat since City put five past them in 1956.

We’ll just go ahead and assume Roberto Mancini spent the rest of the day ordering the finest fireworks petrodollars can buy.

Further reading: The Daily Mail