Mario Balotelli will only change when kids stop liking him

Mario Balotelli has had a tough start at Liverpool, as he has struggled to score goals while also dealing with a now customary amount of unjust scrutiny from the press. But the 24-year-old striker has revealed that no matter how much criticism he receives, only one group's opinions of him actually matter. Well, one group of humans, anyway.

From TalkSport:

"Every morning, when I wake up, I think that maybe yesterday people are speaking bad things about me," says Balotelli in an exclusive interview with Sport. "But then I see kids coming up to me, like today, and I think I'm not doing that bad. I could do better – of course, I could do way better – but kids are natural, they are honest. If they look at you and don't like you, they don't come up to you.
"So if I see them always coming up to me, then it means I can't be that bad, either as a footballer or a person. When kids stop asking for my autograph or a picture or whatever, then maybe I will start to think that I need to change something about myself. This is why I love kids. And dogs."

And pigs.

As heart-warming as Balotelli's love of kids and animals is, it's difficult to see the first part of that quote as anything other than incredibly sad. To wake up every morning with the thought that people are putting you down has to make it difficult to summon the will to get out of bed. And since that noise is coming from adults it's no wonder Balotelli, who has a 22-month-old daughter, focuses more on his bonds with the young and the furry.