What We Talk About When We Talk About Mario Balotelli’s Fear of an Adorable Dog

Troubling news out of Milan, friends. Mario Balotelli is apparently scared of a dog. How can a man who inspires another man to eat his own shit be afraid of an adorable dog bounding about a boxing ring filled with only love and enthusiasm for human contact? Where have you gone, Super Mario, a doggie turns its lonely eyes to you.

Here at VICE Sports, we are concerned. We very clearly love dogs, and yet we also love mercurial, single-named strikers. Mario, Zlatan…the list goes on for at least two or three more names. How to reconcile now that a beloved figure in our workspace is apparently scared of another beloved figure in our workspace? This is like a parent that’s asked to choose a favorite child, only worse. Usually there is a dumb, ugly kid that the parent would obviously shun in favor of the smart, attractive child, but there is no such obvious choice here. Dogs? Dogs are great. And Mario? Mario is also great.

Where did everything go wrong?

What happened to this man? A man who reportedly Face-Timed with a dog? The world is a cruel place and it can change you for the better or for the worse but we are not helpless against it. We have free will, it’s what separates us from animals like that fucking mush right up there. We feel the same primitive instinct of fight or flight, but we also feel it. We recognize that it is instinctual and therefore we have the ability to ignore that impulse. You can run from dogs, Mario, it’s perfectly natural, and at the end of the day, yes, you will still be alive. But will you truly be living?

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