Balotelli primed to return in time for City's Europa tie at Juventus
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Your support makes all the difference.Mario Balotelli hopes to recover from knee surgery by the end of November, the Manchester City and Italy forward said yesterday. The striker, 20, signed from Inter Milan in August just after his Italy debut, barely had time to make an impact on the English game before undergoing an operation on 8 September.
He was expected to return by the middle of October but his progress has been slightly slower. "It's going to be around six to eight weeks," Balotelli said. He therefore should return in time for the 16 December Europa League match at Juventus, whose fans used to racially abuse him when he played in Turin for Inter.
He has linked up again at City with Roberto Mancini, one of his former Inter coaches, and has quickly got used to Manchester's famous rainy weather while kicking his heels in the treatment room. "It's OK, I'm calm about it," the often shy man said when asked about the weather.
With expensive cap, shades and shiny earrings, the striker would have been easy to spot had Manchester's public not been largely deprived of seeing him on the field since his arrival from Inter for £24m.
City, meanwhile, are preparing to give England a helping hand ahead of their Euro 2012 qualifier with Montenegro on October 12 – but Brian Kidd believes the euphoria of winning a trophy would far outweigh the pride at being such a substantial part of the Three Lions.
City ended up with six players on the field as England dismantled Switzerland in Basle earlier this month, an impressive achievement for a club who have been scouring the planet for new talent under Mancini. There is no reason to imagine that the same half-dozen will not be on duty next month either, maintaining the feel-good factor at Eastlands.
Yet, after representing both Manchester clubs during his own illustrious career, and winning two caps as well as coaching the national side for a couple of years when Sven Goran Eriksson was in charge, Kidd has no doubt the greater glory for City comes through winning a trophies, something they have failed to do since 1976.
"It is wonderful to have these players in the England team," he said. "But as a Manchester lad, who has been lucky and blessed to have been involved with both local clubs, I just want Manchester City to win a trophy. Once we can put that to bed, it will be the start of something big.
"Winning is intoxicating. When you get your first trophy, you want more. The staff want it and so do the players. It goes without saying it is the same for the fans."
After being appointed assistant-manager to Mancini last December, Kidd is now back in the blue half of the city. A scorer for United in the European Cup final win over Benfica on his 19th birthday in 1968, Kidd also found the net in City's UEFA Cup first-leg win over Juventus in 1976. It wasn't enough to guide the club into the next round, though, as the Italians overcame the deficit on home soil.
The distant memory provides City with an element of motivation when the two clubs meet again at Eastlands in the Europa League on Thursday.
Rather more will come from the comments of Juve defender Marco Motta, who has questioned City's expensive recruitment policy, which so far has only been good enough to move them into fourth spot. "City is proof of how big-name signings and big spending, almost 100 million euros if I am not mistaken, is not enough to obtain great results," said Motta.
These words would have carried more weight if Juventus were speaking from a position of authority. But the Turin giants are struggling to recapture their glory days on the home front and failed to overcome Lech Poznan in their first match on home soil two weeks ago.
Nevertheless, the weight of expectation will be on City, for whom Jerome Boateng could make his first start.
"Pressure comes with the territory," said Kidd. "Quite rightly, the expectation is there. But everybody is up for it. We all know the demands. That is how it should be.
"With this particular competition, the boss wants first place in the group. He won't take anything less."
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