Eric Cantona’s move from Leeds United to Manchester United helped to bring about a renaissance for the Red Devils and popularise the Premier League in its early years.
The enigmatic Frenchman won five league titles in his six seasons in English football and missed out on the chance of claiming another after an infamous kung fu kick on an abusive fan at Crystal Palace.
Cantona stunned United fans in 1997 by announcing his retirement from football at the age of just 30, but the former forward has had a colourful career since hanging up his boots.
An actor, singer, photographer, poet and documentary maker, Cantona continues to show he is different from your average footballer. Here, a look at some of his most memorable quotes…
32. “Anyone different is considered crazy”
Eric Cantona’s life since his retirement from football is certainly a bit different to the average player, with forays into the world of film, photography, art, music and poetry.
Even during his career, it was obvious that Cantona was different. Or perhaps he was just misunderstood. “Anyone who is different or is slightly out of the norm, is considered crazy,” he once said.
Eric Cantona shocked the football world and Manchester United in particular when he announced his retirement at the age of just 30.
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But the Frenchman had lost his motivation for the sport. “I stopped playing football because I’d done as much as I could,” he said. “I needed something which was going to excite me as much as football had excited me.”
30. “You’ll never find another Sir Alex Ferguson”
Sir Alex Ferguson left Manchester United in 2013 and the Red Devils have not been the same since, going through a series of managers and failing to win the Premier League over a decade on from the Scot’s departure.
“You may find another [David] Beckham or [Cristiano] Ronaldo, but never ever will you find another Sir Alex Ferguson,” Cantona once said. How true.
Eric Cantona made a huge impression on Manchester United in his five years at Old Trafford and quotes like this one will only endear the Frenchman even more to fans of the Red Devils.
“When I think football, I think Manchester United,” Cantona later said. “I still support United and always will. I will die with them in my heart.” Ah.
28. “Maybe the Rolling Stones can support me”
After acting, painting, photography and poetry, Eric Cantona embarked on a musical career in 2023 with a single, The Friends We Lost, and then a live album.
In an interview with the BBC, the Frenchman was asked which acts he might like to support and gave a defiant response. “No,” he said. “I am a headliner. It’s why I cannot understand you. Maybe The [Rolling] Stones can support me.”
Following his retirement from football, Eric Cantona took up a career in acting and the Frenchman later claimed that the two disciplines had much in common.
“They are extraordinarily similar,” he said. “They are both about emotions within a time frame. You have to have confidence in each and you have to work extremely hard.”
26. “If I support one country, it’s England”
Despite being born in France and playing over 40 times for his country, Eric Cantona has admitted he supports England over Les Bleus since his retirement.
After Euro 2024, the former Manchester United forward said: “I don’t support any team in particular. I support the team who play the best.” But asked specifically about France and England, he added: “If I support one country, it’s England. I feel English in terms of football. The passion for the game, the vibes you feel as a player and a fan. I love to feel these vibes when they sing Three Lions. But I do think they could play much better football.”
Eric Cantona is a Manchester United legend and will forever be associated with the Red Devils, but the Frenchman has admitted he is a big fan of Pep Guardiola’s work at local rivals Manchester City.
“I like Guardiola,” he told The Guardian in 2023. “He’s an artist, a creator. Everything he does, nobody has done it before. He is the spiritual son of Johan Cruyff.” Asked about players, he shook his head. “What I love in football today is only the work of Guardiola.”
24. On Lionel Messi
After Lionel Messi scored five goals for Barcelona against Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League in March 2012, Eric Cantona gave a unique perspective on the Argentine’s brilliance.
“When you watch him as if he has this child inside him and he is making some childhood dream come true,” he said. “He doesn’t see himself as a star. This is a great player not only for today but for tomorrow. He is a player who always keeps his childish spontaneity and naivety. You can see that. You see it in his eyes.”
23. “If I wanted a lot of personal attention, I would have taken up tennis – or found myself a nice girl to play mixed doubles with”
Eric Cantona was usually in the spotlight during his time at Manchester United, for the right reasons and sometimes for the wrong ones. But the Frenchman has claimed he doesn’t crave attention.
“If I wanted a lot of personal attention, I would have taken up tennis – or found myself a nice girl to play mixed doubles with,” he said. Since retirement, however, he has barely been out of the limelight.
Since retiring from football, Eric Cantona has devoted his life to a number of different artistic and cultural passion projects, including film, music, photography and poetry. And the Frenchman has admitted he could not imagine having football as a sole interest.
“Often there are players who have only football as a way of expressing themselves and never develop other interest,” he once said. “And when they no longer play football, they no longer do anything; they no longer exist, or rather they have the sensation of no longer existing.”
Eric Cantona played for both Leeds United and Manchester United and in France for Montpellier and Nimes, but the Frenchman clearly understood rivalry.
In the film Looking for Eric, he said: 1. “You can change your wife, your politics, your religion, but never, never can you change your favourite football team.”
20. “Only one king in Manchester”
When Zlatan Ibrahimovic left Paris Saint-Germain to sign for Manchester United in the summer of 2016, Eric Cantona told the Swedish striker, via Eurosport: “You decided to go red, it is the best choice you ever made. When you walk into the ‘Theatre of Dreams’ and you feel the ghosts of the legends who have been there before; when you score a goal right in front of the Stretford End; when you hear the crowd chanting your name; when your heart beats so strong that it bursts out of your chest; when you feel that you will love them as much as they love you; you will know, my friend, that finally you have made it home.
But he added: “Just one last thing. There can only be one king in Manchester. You can be the prince if you want to and the No. 7 shirt is yours if you are interested. This is my welcome gift to you. The king is gone. Long live the prince.”
19. “I play with passion and fire. I have to accept that sometimes this fire does harm”
Eric Cantona was a genius on the pitch, but the French forward was not always able to keep his emotions in check in a career blighted at times by disciplinary issues.
However, the two things went hand in hand and Cantona later said: “I play with passion and fire. I have to accept that sometimes this fire does harm.”
18. On winning the Beach Soccer World Cup
Eric Cantona retired from football in 1997, but the former Manchester United forward later led France to the title at the 2005 Beach Soccer World Cup in Rio de Janeiro as player-coach.
“When we won, I cried,” he later said. “It meant so much to me, I was very proud. Of course it is not as big as football but when you are a rich man you are proud to own a Rolls Royce, and when you are a poor man you are proud to own a Renault.”
17. “A real revolution”
Following the global financial crisis in 2010, Eric Cantona called for a “real revolution” in a campaign aimed at taking the power away from the banks.
Calling for a mass withdrawal of funds, the Frenchman said: “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. A real revolution.”
16. “My psychoanalyst recommended I go to England”
Following a short trial at Sheffield Wednesday, Eric Cantona left Nimes to sign for Leeds United in January 1992, following the advice of France coach Gerard Houllier and his psychoanalyst to continue his career in England.
“He [my psychoanalyst] advised me not to sign for Marseille and recommended that I should go to England,” Cantona later explained. The rest is history.
Eric Cantona’s frustrations often boiled over on the pitch during his career and the Frenchman’s fierce passion is part of the reason he built up such a rapport with the supporters.
Speaking about the fans, he once said: “Football is therapy for supporters. After a stressful week they get to go to the stadium and sing and shout as loud as they can. It gets rid of so much frustration.”
14. On Johan Cruyff
Following Johan Cruyff’s death in 2016, Eric Cantona paid a glowing tribute to the legendary former Ajax, Barcelona and Netherlands forward.
“I loved the Dutch in the 70s, they excited me and Cruyff was the best,” the Frenchman said. “He was at the heart of a revolution with his football. Ajax changed football and he was the leader of it all. If he wanted he could be the best player in any position on the pitch.”
13. “I am not a man, I am Cantona”
Eric Cantona turned to acting after hanging up his football boots, but combined the two in Ken Loach’s film Looking for Eric in 2009.
In it, Cantona helps troubled Manchester United fan Eric Bishop as the postman navegates a mid-life crisis. “I am not a man, I am Cantona,” the Frenchman tells him in the film’s most famous line.
12. “My best moment? Kicking the hooligan”
Eric Cantona was banned for eight months for kicking out an abusive Crystal Palace fan in an infamous incident at Selhurst Park in January 1995.
And in a career filled with wonderful goals and an array of silverware, the Frenchman later chose it as his highlight. “My best moment? I have a lot of good moments but the one I prefer is when I kicked the hooligan,” he said.
11. “I should have hit him harder”
Reflecting on how he kicked an abusive Crystal Palace fan after being shown a red card in a game at Selhurst Park in January 1995, Eric Cantona had just one regret.
In an interview with FourFourTwo, the former Manchester United favourite said: “I didn’t hit him strong enough. I should have hit him harder.”
10. “He was the perfect manager”
Eric Cantona was brought to Manchester United by Alex Ferguson in 1992 and the two men worked together with great success for five seasons at Old Trafford.
Following Cantona’s lengthy ban for kicking a Crystal Palace fan, Ferguson stood by his player and the Frenchman later said of his manager: “Sometimes in England managers do not set an example. They are fat and drink beer. He was the perfect manager. He was very obsessive about what we had to do in training, what we had to drink and when we slept.”
9. “OM is like a religion in Marseille”
Eric Cantona was born and grew up in Marseille. After starting his career with Auxerre, the former France forward had a spell at Olympique Marseille between 1988 and 1991 – albeit one littered with disciplinary problems.
Speaking later about the club and the city of his birth, he said: “OM is like a religion in Marseille. It’s a cosmopolitan, passionate city and the people live for football.”
Eric Cantona moved from Leeds United to Manchester United in 1992 and the Frenchman clearly felt at home in his new surroundings.
Speaking about life at Old Trafford and in the city, he said: “I feel close to the rebelliousness and vigour of the youth here. Perhaps time will separate us, but nobody can deny that here, behind the windows of Manchester, there is an insane love of football, of celebration and of music.”
7. Homage to George Best
Eric Cantona famously wore the number 7 shirt at Manchester United and in 2005, the Frenchman paid tribute to the man who made it iconic.
Best passed away in 2005 and years later, Cantona said: “After his first training session in heaven, George Best, from his favourite right wing, turned the head of God, who was filling in at left-back. I would love him to save me a place in his team – George Best that is, not God.”
6. Explaining his iconic raised collar
Eric Cantona’s raised collar at Manchester United became iconic and appeared to fit with the Frenchman’s swagger and arrogance on the pitch. But it started by chance.
“I didn’t plan it,” Cantona later explained. “During one game it was cold and my collar just stayed up. We won, so it became a habit to play with my collar up.”
5. “I’m so proud the fans still sing my name, but I fear tomorrow they will stop”
Eric Cantona’s impact at Manchester United was huge and the Frenchman was adored by fans of the Red Devils during his time at Old Trafford.
Much affection for Cantona remains, but the Frenchman said in 2004: “I’m so proud the fans still sing my name, but I fear tomorrow they will stop. I fear it because I love it. And everything you love, you fear you will lose.”
4. “Henri Michel is a bag of sh*t”
Eric Cantona was handed his France debut by Henri Michel in 1987 but was dropped by the former coach the following year and did not mince his words in a television appearance after a game in 1988.
“I hope that one day, we realise that Henri Michel is one of the most incompetent managers in world football,” he said in a post-match interview. “I was reading an article by Mickey Rourke, who’s a guy I really like, and he referred to the people who award the Oscars in Hollywood as sh*tbags. I think that Henri Michel is not far from being included in that category.” Banned from the French team after those comments, he soon returned when Michel Platini replaced Michel after Les Bleus failed to qualify for the 1990 World Cup.
3. “Zidane or Platini? Me!”
Eric Cantona was never lacking in self-confidence when it came to talking about his ability on the football field and the former Manchester United forward was often described as arrogant during his playing career.
Once asked whether France’s greatest-ever player was Michel Platini or ZInedine Zidane, Cantona responded just as you might expect. “No,” he said. “It is me.”
2. “Deschamps nothing more than a water carrier”
Eric Cantona’s second-most famous quote is surely his disparaging take on the talents of former France team-mate Didier Deschamps.
“Deschamps gets by because he always gives 100 per cent, but he will never be anything more than a water carrier,” Cantona said in 1996. And he told a French newspaper: “You can find players like him (Deschamps) on every street corner. At present Didier likes to act like a monk and a moralist but he’ll end up wallowing in every kind of vice.” Deschamps hit back, saying: “How many players can you find on street corners who have won two European Cups? Besides, every team needs its water carriers.” And in 1998, he captained the French team to World Cup glory while Cantona (presumably) watched from home.
1. “When the seagulls follow the trawler…”
Following his infamous kung fu kick on an abusive Crystal Palace fan in a game at Selhurst Park in January 1995, Eric Cantona was hounded by the British press.
In a press conference after the incident, he uttered his most famous quote.”When the seagulls follow the trawler, it’s because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea. Thank you very much,” he said. And that was all he said. The Frenchman was banned for the rest of the season, with his suspension later extended to eight months. That quote, however, remains iconic.
