{"id":345345,"date":"2019-01-23T09:43:04","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T14:43:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=345345"},"modified":"2019-01-23T09:47:34","modified_gmt":"2019-01-23T14:47:34","slug":"report-mario-balotelli-completes-move-to-marseille","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2019\/01\/23\/report-mario-balotelli-completes-move-to-marseille\/","title":{"rendered":"REPORT: Mario Balotelli Completes Move to Marseille"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Much maligned <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/8ff07990\/?utm_campaign=Linker&#038;utm_source=direct&#038;utm_medium=linker-\" onclick=\"sr_record_analytics_event(&#039;newsfeed_click&#039;,&#039;&#039;, sr_record_directory(),&#039;sr_tracker&#039;);\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mario  Balotelli<\/a> has decided to make Marseille the next stop in his journeyman career, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FabrizioRomano\/status\/1087759390667612161\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">according to Fabrizio Romano.<\/a>\u00a0Reports claim that the deal is done with Balotelli to undergo medicals on Wednesday. The Italian international has had a row with new Nice coach Patrick Viera and he is hoping a move to Marseille will revive what looks like another lost season.<\/p>\n<h1><a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/8ff07990\/?utm_campaign=Linker&#038;utm_source=direct&#038;utm_medium=linker-\" onclick=\"sr_record_analytics_event(&#039;newsfeed_click&#039;,&#039;&#039;, sr_record_directory(),&#039;sr_tracker&#039;);\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mario  Balotelli<\/a> Moves to Marseille<\/h1>\n<p>It has been another tough season for Mario  Balotelli, this time on France&#8217;s south coast.\u00a0 Things had been going so well for the former <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/feeds\/manchestercityfootball-co\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Manchester City<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/feeds\/liverpoolfootball-co\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Liverpool<\/a> man, the 28-year-old had scored 15 league goals in back-to-back seasons in France.\u00a0 Those seasons were under Lucian Favre, who now coaches <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/2018\/11\/14\/the-revival-of-borussia-dortmund\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Borussia Dortmund.<\/a>\u00a0 Balotelli has had less luck with his new coach, former <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/feeds\/arsenalfootball-co\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Arsenal<\/a> and France star Patrick Viera.<\/p>\n<p>The breakdown of their relationship is not just down to Viera. Over the summer, Balotelli was angling for a move to Marseille and thought he had an agreement with Nice over the transfer.\u00a0 There were even reports that a deal was done as<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tancredipalmeri\/status\/996520147614601216\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> early as May<\/a>, however, Balotelli stayed at Nice for another season.<\/p>\n<p>That turned out to be a bad decision for all involved.\u00a0 Upset at his lack of movement, Balotelli showed up overweight and out of shape to start this season.\u00a0 We are now into January and Balotelli has still not scored in ten Ligue 1 appearances, but that won&#8217;t matter once he moves to Marseille.<\/p>\n<p>They are desperate for any type of striker as <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/ea0ff634\/?utm_campaign=Linker&#038;utm_source=direct&#038;utm_medium=linker-\" onclick=\"sr_record_analytics_event(&#039;newsfeed_click&#039;,&#039;&#039;, sr_record_directory(),&#039;sr_tracker&#039;);\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Val\u00e8re  Germain<\/a> and <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/c6ac6579\/?utm_campaign=Linker&#038;utm_source=direct&#038;utm_medium=linker-\" onclick=\"sr_record_analytics_event(&#039;newsfeed_click&#039;,&#039;&#039;, sr_record_directory(),&#039;sr_tracker&#039;);\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kostas  Mitroglou<\/a> have failed to live up to the billing.\u00a0 The pair have combined for six goals for a seventh-place Marseille side and that is a travesty.\u00a0 So, in steps Mario  Balotelli, hoping to be Super Mario and save Marseille&#8217;s season.<\/p>\n<p>The club are hoping to have Balotelli ready for their big Friday night clash with second-place Lille.\u00a0 If not, then he would likely make his debut against Reims on February 2nd.\u00a0 If Balotelli is going to get his season going, it will be in this run of games that Marseille have.\u00a0 It&#8217;s a very winnable run for them before their big clash with <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/clubs\/paris-saint-germain\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paris Saint-Germain<\/a> on March 17th.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"UZl6_WERQkdYiL82P3ZXIw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1034941492\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'UZl6_WERQkdYiL82P3ZXIw',sig:'L6vYR3IAAt06kx0wWgmDwL1VXmJsyNgnZAeXlpCNnYY=',w:'594px',h:'392px',items:'1034941492',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Much maligned Mario Balotelli has decided to make Marseille the next stop in his journeyman career, according to Fabrizio Romano.\u00a0Reports claim that the deal is done with Balotelli to undergo medicals on Wednesday. The Italian international has had a row with new Nice coach Patrick Viera and he is hoping a move to Marseille will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2573,"featured_media":345719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,28],"tags":[122,128,1471,125,3310,136],"class_list":["post-345345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ligue-1","category-transfers","tag-ligue-1","tag-mario-balotelli","tag-marseille","tag-nice","tag-patrick-viera","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Nat Goodlad, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2573"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}