In 2010, after leaving a training session, a young Manchester City fan approached Mario Balotelli and asked for an autograph. Balotelli noticed the boy should have been at school and asked why he was not there. The boy admitted he had been staying away because of a bully.
Balotelli told him to get in the Maserati.
He picked up the boy's mother and drove them both to the school, where he sat down with the headteacher and made the other child promise to leave his classmates alone.
It was not just a kind gesture. As a child growing up in Italy, Balotelli had been bullied himself. He saw his own story in that boy, and he was not prepared to walk away from it 👏