The Rebel Who Would Be King

'Arrogant, gifted, mercurial, entrancing, infuriating, creative, violent - it's hard to think of a single player who could have inspired such description in the modern era.' - guardian.co.uk

'As soon as I walked, I played football. My parents have told me: as soon as I saw a ball, I played with it. This is something I have in me...Maybe, on the day I caressed a ball for the first time, the sun was shining, people were happy, and it made me feel like playing football. All my life, I'll try to capture that moment again.'Having just recently finished reading this book, I can easily say it's a must-read, not just for any football/Man. United fan but for any sports fan in general. A fascinating book on a truly fascinating character. Cantona was and still is a legend in the eyes of all Man. United fans, almost every matchday without fail a song or chant will be belted out with gusto about 'the King'.

'I have this passion inside that I can't handle. It's like a fire inside which has to get out. Sometimes it wants to get out and do harm. I do myself harm. It worries me when I do harm, especially to others. But I can't be what I am without these other things to my character'.
Philippe Auclair, a French football writer, based for many years in England, spent three years researching the book, conducting 200 interviews and synthesizing the results into a compelling narrative. Auclair charts Cantona's muddled journey through French football from Auxerre to Marseille to Bordeaux to Montpellier to Marseille again and finally Nimes, to his 'destiny' in Manchester via Leeds.

'An artist, in my eyes, is someone who can lighten up a dark room. I have never and will never find difference between the pass from Pele to Carlos Alberto in the final of the World Cup in 1970, and the poetry of young Rimbaud'.
Rather than being a straight-up autobiography, this book attempts to analyze just what made Cantona tick, what provoked his legendary temper, what made him happy, what made him disillusioned, sad etc. The book ends when Cantona's football career ended, Auclair describes Cantona as being 'born' a professional footballer on 5 November 1983 in Auxerre, and 'dying' on 11th May 1997 at Old Trafford, no chapters on his subsequent forays into acting & beach football.

A worthy book for a worthy legend, here a some of the quotes that for me sum up the maverick genius, Eric Cantona.

'Doubt? Me? Never. But I'm different. I'm a bit of a dreamer. I feel I can do everything. When I see a bicycle, I'm sure I can beat the world record and win the Tour de France.'
'I should have been born English. When I hear "God Save the Queen", it can make me cry, much more than when I hear "La Marseillaise". I feel close to the rebelliousness and vigour of the youth here. Perhaps time will separate us, but nobody can deny here, behind the windows of Manchester, there is an insane love of football, of celebration and of music.'



'I do not want any inscription on my tombstone. A blank stone, because what I would like to leave behind me is the sentiment of a great mystery.'