funds after an earthquake in Armenia.
Marseille banned him for a month and Tapie
suggested Cantona needed psychiatric help,
so the player boarded a plane to Barcelona,
his grandfather’s home city. He was loaned
to Bordeaux for the rest of the campaign.
At the start of 1989–90, Cantona was
again loaned out, to Montpellier, but then
recalled to the France squad by new boss
Platini, who was eager to harness his talent
and salvage an ailing World Cup qualifying
campaign. On Eric’s return, both he and Papin
bagged braces in a 4-2 win in Sweden.
“Platini knew football well, and he knew
Eric and I could play together – we’d already
done it at Marseille,” Papin says. “I scored a
lot of goals thanks to Eric, and he did too. We
just complemented each other. It was never
easy for the opposition to control him – he
often had one or two defenders permanently
on him, which allowed me to find space and
use my speed.”
Cantona bagged eight goals in eight
games for France that season, even if Les
Bleus still missed out on Italia 90. Withambitious Montpellier, he’d score 14 times
and win the Coupe de France, despite a
difficult start to the season when they were
dragged into a relegation battle.
“There was talent in that team, but the
atmosphere wasn’t ideal,” says their former
midfielder Jean-Claude Lemoult. “A lot of
responsibilities were given to young players,
and that was complicated. Whether it’s in
a changing room, a movie or just in life, Eric is
very prominent. He has ideas, views and he’s
not shy about expressing them. Reporters
often came to talk to him, so he could say
what he had to say.”
With old foe Michel Der Zakarian now also
a team-mate, perhaps another flashpoint
was always inevitable.
“We lost 1-0 at Lille, and when we
returned to the changing room I was talking
to Michel,” Lemoult says. “Cantona came over
and got angry – I tried to calm him down by
telling him that we weren’t talking about him,
but he threw a boot in my face and a fight
broke out. The president wanted to fire him,
but he met Eric a few days later, they had a
chat and in the end he didn’t.”
Instead, it was manager Aimé Jacquet –
later a 1998 World Cup winner with France- who was soon fired and replaced by Michel
Mezy. Lemoult and Cantona put their scuffle
behind them, and Montpellier went on to lift
their first major trophy for 61 years.
“Eric had an important role in us winning
the Coupe de France, particularly in the semis
16 May 2021 FourFourTwocould come and see my phenomenon. We
arrived at Cantona’s house at around 8 p.m.,
and Eric was painting. Tapie asked Cantona
where he was born, and Cantona said
Marseille. Tapie said, ‘Well, that’s it – you’re
coming to play in Marseille, then’.”
L’OM got their man after outbidding their
rivals and fending off late competition from
Milan. “We needed players like Cantona,”
says Papin, who’d joined Marseille two years
earlier. But Cantona remained sceptical of
Tapie. “There were things about Marseille he
didn’t like,” Roux says.
His time at the club started badly, too – left
out of the France squad after a goalless first
month, he responded by branding national
team boss Henri Michel a “s**tbag”, insisting
he wouldn’t play for Les Bleus again while
Michel was in charge.
By January, Cantona was starting to forge
a partnership with Papin, but his relationship
with Tapie had deteriorated – then he threw
his shirt away and marched off topless after
being substituted during a charity match
against Torpedo Moscow, arranged to raise“I TRIED TO CALM ERIC DOWn, BUT THEn
HE THREW A BOOT In MY FACE AnD A FIGHT
BROKE OUT. THE CLUB WAnTED TO FIRE HIM”
A year after Eric’s arrival in England, his
younger brother turned up too.
Joel Cantona began his career with
fleeting appearances for Marseille, leaving in
1987 – a year before Eric arrived. Joel joined
Rennes, Antwerp, Angers and then Hungarian
side Ujpest, before heading to Peterborough
United in 1993.
That didn’t work out, so he joined third-tier
Stockport, playing a handful of games and
displaying some typical Cantona eccentricity- ahead of the 1994 Second Division Play-off
Final, he treated those travelling by coach
to a random but nevertheless memorable
rendition of All That She Wants by Ace of
Base, in a thick French accent.
Having returned to Marseille, relegated
after their infamous match-fixing scandal, he
retired early like big bro, leaving l’OM at 28.
THE OTHER CAn TOn A
Clockwise from
left Eric took
after his painter
father; a lethal
Papin pairing;
flying to the
Coupe de France
Clockwise from
right “Hats, not
hate”; on loan
at Montpellier;
“I think bleu
is my colour”THE
STORY OF
MAn UTD64 The Story of Man Utd FourFourTwo.com