Mario Balotelli

About

Few shirt numbers in modern football are as immediately recognisable as Balotelli's #45. He wore it at Manchester City , he carried it back to AC Milan , and it became shorthand for a career that never quite followed the expected path. A Mario Balotelli shirt with that number on the back is not just a vintage piece from a strong club squad. It is tied to a specific personality, a specific era, and a player who generated more headlines per goal than almost anyone else of his generation. The light blue Manchester City home shirts from 2011/12 and 2012/13 with #45 are among the more visually distinctive collector pieces from the Premier League in that period. Manchester City: The Title Season and the Shirt That Came With It Balotelli's time at Manchester City between 2010 and 2013 coincided with the club's transformation into genuine title contenders. The 2011/12 season ended with City winning the Premier League on goal difference in the final minutes of the final day, and Balotelli was part of that squad wearing the Umbro light blue home shirt with the Etihad Airways sponsor. That same shirt is the one he was wearing in the Manchester derby when he lifted his shirt to reveal the "Why Always Me?" sign underneath, one of the most photographed moments in Premier League history and permanently linked to that specific kit. The 2012/13 shirt that followed used the same Umbro template and Etihad Airways sponsor, keeping the same light blue aesthetic as the title-winning season. A Balotelli Manchester City shirt from either of these seasons belongs to a period supporters still talk about, and the #45 name set in the City navy font is one of the cleaner name sets from the Premier League of that era. AC Milan and the Return That Produced Strong Shirts Balotelli returned to Italy with AC Milan in January 2013, and the shirts from his time there span some of the more interesting Adidas Milan templates of that decade. The red and black home shirt from 2012/13 with #45, the gold-de