Chapter 1: What made Eric Cantona one of football's greatest enigmas?
Hello and welcome to The Rest Is Football with Alan Shearer, Micah Richards and me, Gary Lineker. In our latest episode of Premier League Greats, the moments that made them, we're focusing on, well, one of the most iconic footballers of our lifetime. As much off the pitch as possibly on the pitch. Also a friend of the podcast. Won the title with two different clubs. Correct. Different titles.
Yeah. Yes. A certain King Eric. Eric Cantona, the one and only. We spoke to him, didn't we, during the Euros in Berlin. He was a guest on our podcast and it was one of the episodes I joined. And he was everything, everything we expected he would be.
Didn't he call me Michael?
Michel or Michael? Something like that, wasn't it?
Yeah, I didn't have a clue who I was.
Yeah.
Although you would have been a fan of his growing up because you were Leeds. Obviously, Arsenal was your side, but you also liked Leeds.
What year were you born? 88. So you were three or four when Leeds won the league.
The city was bouncing. It was around the time when I was, yeah, my younger days. Too young. You wouldn't have remembered him at that point.
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Chapter 2: How did Eric Cantona's signing impact Manchester United's success?
Eric was different, wasn't he? In a good way. I think mostly in a good way. I think so.
Well, I think looking back at his career, both on and off the pitch, he was different. I mean, if you speak to any of the Man U boys, they will tell you how influential he was and how different he was. And it must be one of the bargains of all time when about 1.2 million, something like that, wasn't it? When Sir Alex signed him from Leeds.
And that caused issues, didn't it?
Can't go from Leeds to Manchester.
Especially a Leeds team that had won the title, then you go Leeds to Manchester United. And they were, and still are probably huge rivals, but particularly back...
then you can't go from leeds to manly rio did that as well though didn't he rio fernand yeah yeah judas judas yeah the old collar up wasn't it it was like i mean if you're gonna play with your collar up then you have to you have to be good you have to be good yeah he was good he was he was he was seriously good yeah he was uh he was tough as well wasn't he had the
The arrogance had the... I played against it all. Did you?
Yeah, I played in the last season before it turned to the Premier League, didn't I? I was at Tottenham. Yeah. Yes, when they won the league, so... Oh, was it? Yeah, yeah. Where did you finish that year? We weren't very good. We've got financial problems and we sold one or two players. We couldn't get any new players in. We were all right.
We won the Cup the previous season and we had a decent enough run in the Cup Winners' Cup without going two for that quarter-finals or something.
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Chapter 3: What were the controversies surrounding Eric Cantona's career?
Well, good header too.
He could do a bit of everything, couldn't he? Good like that, on the floor. Yeah, technically very good. Very, very good, yeah.
You mentioned ending the drought. You played for Blackburn and then won that trophy. I've spoken about Man City as well in terms of winning that first trophy for so long. I was always coming, I would say, with the players that we were signing, but trying to get over the line, especially when you're up against someone like Sir Alex Ferguson, was always going to be difficult.
Well, Eric on the pod actually said we had him to thank for Blackburn winning the title because he was banned for the last few months of that season. And he says if he had been playing, we wouldn't have won that title. I beg to differ on that one because I reckon we should have won it the season beforehand with Blackburn.
How many points was it? You won the league. I'm not sure. It was tight, wasn't it, yours?
We lost on the last day. We lost on the last day at Anfield. And Man United didn't win at West Ham.
Yeah, 1-1.
So that gave us the title. But we were in a really, really good position this season before as well. And it was only our inexperience that cost us, I think.
Did you believe you could win it at the start of the season, though?
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Chapter 4: What was Eric Cantona's playing style and influence on the pitch?
I don't know, something along those lines. There you go, John. Thank you. We should have asked him on the punch, shouldn't we? He's been on the pod. I think we talked about it. We did talk about it. I love all that though. He's different and you want different, don't you? We want different because we work in the business of football.
We work in the media and whether it's on television or podcasts or whatever. That sort of stuff's great because it gives you something else to talk about.
Yeah, he mentioned on the pod about his family, didn't he? He tried to keep them away from social media. Keeps them away, no phones, nothing like this.
He wants them to look at the mountains and the trees and the sky.
And talk to people.
Yeah, and talk to people.
You remember people, instead of your head down on your phone like that, he said he wants his kids to go out. look up and talk to people.
I think going from perhaps the ugly side of the game in many ways and whatever you feel about that, it wasn't a great moment for football to one of the great moments in football. And that was his brilliant chip. You would have enjoyed it more than most because it was against Sunderland.
Cantona. How to create space and then we passed a couple of defenders. McClare, here's Cantona. He's done it!
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Chapter 5: How did Sir Alex Ferguson manage Eric Cantona differently?
Yeah. His messages are often cryptic. Let's put it that way. Top player, though. Yeah. Unbelievable player. This episode is brought to you by Whoop. If football teaches you anything, it's that careers are shaped between matches by how you recover and sleep and how you manage the days in between games week after week.
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