Totally Extra: Why always him? The Mario Balotelli story
The Totally Football Show with James Richardson
The Athletic
4.6 • 4.2K Ratings
🗓️ 16 August 2025
⏱️ 68 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome to your Saturday morning dose of Totally!
This is a space where we let our figurative hair down and free ourselves from the relentless merry-go-round of this season. We’ll have nostalgia, we'll have trivia, we'll have whatever nonsense tickles our fancy really. And we'll be taking a look back through the annuls into the week in football that was through the years...
Today we're taking a trip down memory lane and charting the remarkable life and career of Mario Balotelli - who happened to celebrate his 35th birthday on the 12th of August.
A great entertainer, social media legend, fireworks enthusiast, bib denier, misunderstood character, sensational striker and hugely significant cultural figure - from Inter to Genoa and everywhere in between.
Produced by Lucy Oliva.
RUNNING ORDER:
• PART 1: Welcome to Totally Extra - Cotswolds recommendations, sausage pasta, road trips and a quiz question (00.40)
• PART 2: This week in football - Triffic Niko Kranjčar, the start of the Premier League and crazy lockdown scorelines (12.00)
• PART 3: Why Always Me? The life and times of Mario Balotelli (16.35)
• PART 4: AOB, James' hotspot password and a correct answer? (55.00)
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Transcript
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