Manchester United legend Eric Cantona on THAT kung-fu kick, why a Liverpool star is his favourite player and his fledgling acting career
Charismatic Frenchman explains to Dave Kidd why he doesn't have a favourite goal and his thoughts on Zlatan Ibrahimovic
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HIS is no ordinary question-and-answer session with a former footballer.
When Eric Cantona is in town, there is no standard after-dinner fare — no revelations about team-mates, no anecdotes about the good old days, no strident opinions on the modern game.
Cantona scored 82 goals for Manchester United, only a third as many as Wayne Rooney.
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Yet he is considered the greatest player in the club’s history, not just because of the majesty of his technique and the arrogance of his persona, but also his unparalleled mystique.
Before Cantona performed his first-ever one-man show in front of 3,500 people at the Bournemouth International Centre on Tuesday, the VIPs paid £200 for photos with their idol.
Grown men were struck dumb and middle-aged women swooned like schoolgirls.
Like a charismatic Trappist monk, Cantona’s thoughts are closely guarded.
As a player, he never gave interviews. United used to claim he couldn’t even speak English.
Until he was convicted for a kung-fu kick on a Crystal Palace fan and came out with his famous line about seagulls, sardines and trawlers.
This was complete mumbo-jumbo rather than code, Cantona now insists. United’s solicitor, Maurice Watkins, insisted he must say a few words, so he did.
Although he is amused that people still try to analyse the statement 22 years later.
Aged 50, Cantona is a bear of a man with a Saddam Hussein gallows-era beard, who pulls off the trick of appearing surly yet mischievous.
During a 50-minute Q&A session, Cantona is unwilling to compromise his enigmatic reputation with too much straight-talking. His promoter, Terry Baker, and fans ask all the obvious questions — but Cantona is in no mood to give obvious answers.
Who was the greatest player he ever played with? Cantona is silent.
They yell out suggestions. “Giggs!” “Keane!” “Scholes!”
And so Cantona smiles: “Gary McAllister.”
The Manchester United fans who dominate the audience boo at this mention of his former title-winning team-mate at Leeds, who also represented another bitter rival, Liverpool.
McAllister was a fine player, so maybe he means it. But the more they boo, the wider Cantona smiles.
So which was his favourite goal — the sublime chip against Sunderland which, two decades later, still draws spontaneous applause when shown before the show?
The crackerjack against Wimbledon at Selhurst Park in the green-and-gold kit?
Or the 1996 FA Cup final winner against Liverpool?
“No, my favourite goal has never been scored.
“I’d loved to have scored a goal where the keeper rolls it out and every player in the team touches the ball just once. It is simplicity but the hardest thing to do.”
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Cantona says he doesn’t watch much football but tries to keep up with United.
He says they are doing well under Jose Mourinho and concedes that Zlatan Ibrahimovic — billed as Cantona Mark II — is “a great player”.
But the Frenchman also quotes Pablo Picasso: “Poor artists imitate. Great artists steal. So they can just try to imitate me.”
Is this a dig at Zlatan? Probably not — but who knows?
Asked to name his influences, he cites his father — “a great psychologist” who fed his desire — and Johan Cruyff for the key to his technique “look up and study all movement before you even receive the ball”.
Then there was his career-defining relationship with Sir Alex Ferguson.
He was the missing piece who made Ferguson a champion in England; Fergie the manager who turned Cantona from an enfant terrible into a legend.
Cantona compares his old boss to Ken Loach, who directed the brilliant movie Looking for Eric, in which the Frenchman played himself.
“They are both great men, with great humility and humanity,” says Cantona. “For Ken, every movie is like his first; for Ferguson, every match was like his first.”
Ferguson was at his most influential after Cantona’s nine-month ban for kicking Matthew Simmons following his sending-off at Selhurst Park.
Of that astonishing flashpoint, Cantona says: “I’ve said before I should have kicked him harder but maybe tomorrow I’ll say something else.
“I cannot regret it. It was a great feeling. I learned from it — I think he (Simmons) learned too.
“Nine months was a long time out and I struggled for a time but thanks to Ferguson we won the Double with a new generation.
“I was lucky and proud to play with two generations, with Mark Hughes and Paul Ince, then that great younger (Class of 92) generation.”
These days, Cantona talks more passionately about his acting career than about football.
“I like to act because I need adrenalin,” he explains. “Playing football twice a week is like a drug and you miss it physiologically.
“It’s why so many ex-players have depression, because of the adrenalin they have lived with for ten, 15 or 20 years if you are Ryan Giggs.
“I have no trophies, no medals, nothing about football in my house. I loved my time as a footballer but to think too much about what you have done, you feel like a prisoner to the past.”
This May will mark the 20th anniversary of Cantona’s shock retirement, days before his 31st birthday.
“I’d lost my passion for the game,” he says. “When I was 20 I said I’d retire when I lost my passion, even if I was still young. They didn’t believe me but that is what I did.”
Asked about the absence of a Cantona statue at the Theatre of Dreams, he urges the audience to act like street artist Banksy and make their own to leave outside the ground.
Then he’s back to his philosophy, wondering out loud: “Do I know myself? I am not sure. I know myself in certain situations but if I was around during the Second World War, maybe I would be a collaborator.
“Ask me now and I’d say ‘I’d be a man, I’d be in the Resistance’ but until you are in that situation, who knows . . . ”
Then, realising he might be getting too deep for his audience, Cantona takes a dramatic pause and announces: “When ze seagulls . . . ”