Manchester City fullback Pablo Zabaleta says teammate Mario Balotelli can be the best in the world.

Zabaleta is confident that the striker is destined to reach the top.

"Since Mario arrived he has done positive and negative things," Zabaleta told Omnisport.

"He is a player, a person too, who is very difficult to understand because you never know what he is going to come up with next.

"As a player, sometimes not all you have in the feet you have in the head, and Mario is a character that, as a team-mate, sometimes you laugh at what he does and sometimes you want to kill him. But in the end he is a great person.

"As a player he has a great talent. I don't know if he would be fighting for the Ballon d'Or with Messi and Ronaldo but he would be close to being one of the best strikers in the world."