With Alexis Sanchez to wear his No7 shirt, we remember Manchester United’s maverick superstar Eric Cantona
Alexis Sanchez may be the new No7 at Old Trafford, but you can never forget fans' favourite 'King Eric' who lit up the Theatre of Dreams
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THE man. The myth. The legend.
Alexis Sanchez may have inherited the fabled number 7 shirt at Manchester United, but you can never discount what Eric Cantona did at Old Trafford.
In fact, few players in the history of the Premier League have had quite the impact of the maverick Frenchman.
A title winner with Leeds, four-time winner with Manchester United, the mercurial Frenchman talked the talk and walked the walk.
Put simply, he was, and is, a wonderful one-off.
He could have played for Everton….
Before he was turned down by Sheffield Wednesday and then signed by Leeds, Cantona was on the radar of Everton manager Howard Kendall.
However, the Toffees boss considered him too much of a risk.
“I made a number of enquiries and everyone said the same thing:
“He’s totally unsuitable for English football”, he recalled.
“Needless to say, I acted on that information and turned him down.”
As Leeds United found out…
Though he helped Leeds to the title, Cantona was soon on his way across the Pennines to Old Trafford.
When he was asked what happened, Leeds manager Howard Wilkinson was typically forthright.
“Eric likes to do what he likes, when he likes, because he likes it,” he shrugged, “and then f*** off.”
He wasn’t that fussed about trophies…
Cantona enjoyed a stellar career in which he won seven league titles in England and France and countless individual awards.
But what was his personal highlight during his glittering career in the professional game?
“I have a lot of good moments,” he said, “but the one I prefer is when I kicked the hooligan."
Cantona said what he liked and liked what he said…
In 1989, Cantona was suspended indefinitely by his club Marseille after smashing the ball into the crowd and throwing his shirt at the referee.
His reaction was all because he was substituted and to compound matters, it was a charity match.
Two years later, as a player for Nimes, he was banned for three games for throwing a ball at a ref.
When he turned up at the disciplinary hearing, however, he decided to give it to them with both barrels, calling each committee member an “idiot” to their faces.
When his ban was increased to two months, Cantona announced his retirement from football, albeit temporarily.
He was the greatest…
In 2000, Cantona was voted the greatest United player of all-time in a poll of fans.
Despite being up against greats such as George Best, Sir Bobby Charlton, Cantona was deemed the darling of the Old Trafford crowd.
He wasn’t afraid to speak his mind…
Nobody was safe from the tongue of Eric, not even his team-mates.
In 1996, Cantona laid waste to his former French international colleague Didier Deschamps before United played Juventus, calling him a “water carrier”.
“You can find players like him (Deschamps) on every street corner,” shrugged Eric.
“At present Didier likes to act like a monk and a moralist but he'll end up wallowing in every kind of vice.”
FULL KIT BANKER Alexis Sanchez pictured in Man United kit at Old Trafford for the first time as he finalises record-breaking move
He was always one for a surprise…
A week after leading United to the title in 1996/97 – his fourth in five years at the club – Cantona dropped his bombshell.
He was quitting football, aged just 30.
Cue mass hysteria in one half of Manchester (and relief in the other) and a glowing tribute from his manager Alex Ferguson.
“He was born to play for United. Some players, with respected and established reputations, are cowed and broken by the size and expectations.
"Not Eric. He swaggered in, stuck his chest out, raised his head and surveyed everything as if to ask: `I'm Cantona, how big are you? Are you big enough for me?'”
Cantona, as ever, had his own view of his departure. “Leaving a club is like leaving a woman. When there’s nothing left to say, you go.”
He had many, many talents…
When he quit the game, Cantona turned to acting to express himself and even found himself the subject of a film, Ken Loach’s comedy Looking For Eric.
He was good too, although one critic found his accent “a bit impenetrable”, adding that it wasn’t “easy to tell if he is speaking French or English”.
He found that life was a beach…
Cantona also turned his talents to beach football, a sport in which he enjoyed considerable success.
When he was asked how it compared to playing at Old Trafford and winning silverware, he was typically expressive.
“It's like when you are very rich and you buy a Rolls Royce and not so rich and you buy a Renault,” he reflected.
“Emotionally it's exactly the same.”
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Talking of Rolls-Royces…
In 2013, Cantona got his Rolls-Royce customised by the graffiti artist JonOne.
When the 1984 Rolls-Royce Corniche II was finally finished it raised over £100,000 for the Abbe Pierre Foundation - a French homeless charity.
'I decided to donate it because it's the ultimate symbol of wealth, and will help those in ultimate poverty,” he explained.
He’s still talkin’ about a revolution…
These days Eric can often be seen encouraging the masses to rise up against the ruling elite.
He saves most of his energy for having a pop at bankers.
"We don't pick up weapons to kill people to start the revolution,” he said recently.
“The revolution is really easy to do these days. What's the system?
The system is built on the power of the banks. So it must be destroyed through the banks.”
Imagine Harry Kane saying that.