Francesco Totti set out to hurt Mario Balotelli with shocking red card in 2010

Mario Balotelli had an uncanny ability to wind people up.

While ‘Super Mario’ might have mellowed somewhat by his standards in recent years, there’s no denying that his rollercoaster first few years at the top of professional football rustled plenty of feathers.

Whether it was leaving Jose Mourinho tearing his hair out or scrapping with Roberto Mancini in training, Balotelli certainly caused his fair share of stressful moments during those early days at Inter Milan and Manchester City.

However, few people have reacted quite as angrily to Balotelli’s antics as Francesco Totti, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest male players in the history of Italian football.

The infinitely gifted midfielder and forward made over 750 appearances for AS Roma as a one-club man between 1992 and 2017, but his legendary career could in fact have ended seven years before that.

And Balotelli would have played a key role in that decision had Totti followed it through because the Roma legend was left with a lot of thinking to do on the back of the 2010 Coppa Italia final.

“Why?” you ask. Well, because Totti’s patience had run so thin with Balotelli that he produced what must go down as one of the most cynical fouls of the century to earn himself an instant red card.

In what proved to be a 1-0 defeat for the Romans as Mourinho’s Inter secured another piece of their treble puzzle, Totti came on as a second-half substitute but wasn’t able to make it to the final whistle.

As Balotelli made an impressive run down the left-hand flank with Inter leading in the dying minutes of the game, Totti decided enough was enough and hacked him down with a ruthless kick.

The Inter striker was duly chopped down like a tree in a moment so remarkable that a