What Balotelli and Vieira said about each other after disastrous Nice spell

Mario Balotelli and Patrick Vieira look set to be reunited again at Genoa, but the former Manchester City teammates haven’t always got along, particularly during their time working together at OGC Nice.

Here is what the two had to say about each other after their falling out in Ligue 1.

Balotelli and Vieira set for third reunion 

Balotelli and Vieira were teammates for a season at Manchester City in 2010-11, before the Frenchman hung up his boots. They were then reunited in France at Nice, where Balotelli enjoyed some of the most productive goalscoring years of his career before it all went wrong.

Balotelli had hit 15 goals from 23 Ligue 1 appearances in 2016-17, and then a further 18 from 28 the following year under Lucien Favre before he left to take a job at Borussia Dortmund.

Vieira was appointed as Favre’s successor in the summer of 2018. Though Balotelli signed a new one-year contract extension that same summer, he would only remain at the club until January, scoring zero goals from his 10 appearances in all comopetitions.

What Balotelli and Vieira said about each other

Balotelli has previously claimed that he never had an issue with Vieira on a personal level, but that his style of play failed to get the best out of him on the pitch.

“I lived in Villefranche, and it was crazy. I was smiling every day, I went to the sea every day. It was a dream life,” Balotelli said in an interview in April.

“The problem was that the way Vieira played didn’t really suit me. I got along well with him, but on sporting matters, I didn’t agree. If I hadn’t had these problems with him, I would never have left Nice.”

Vieira, meanwhile, maintains that it was difficult to work with Balotelli at Nice due to his general way of life.

“Mario’s mindset was difficult for a collective sport. The philosophy I wanted to put in place, the togetherness and work ethic I wanted to build, it was difficult for me to work with a player like Mario,” Vieira told the Daily Mail in 2020.

“It was really difficult for both of us to work together, so we decided to go different ways,” he concluded.