No matter where his career has taken him, Mario Balotelli’s home has always been here, in an apartment block sandwiched between a Volvo dealership and the campus of the University of Brescia. The bottom floor is taken up by a bicycle shop, a piadina joint and an interiors showroom. Balotelli has the penthouse.

He bought it in 2012, when he was not just a sporting phenomenon, but a cultural one, too. That was the year he won the Premier League with Manchester City; the year he drove Italy to the final of the European Championship; the year he appeared on the cover of Time magazine.