Eric Cantona – A Short Introduction

Even though I could personally never play football or develop a great liking to the game as far as its club football variant is concerned, I must admit that the game holds great appeal to the overall world. It is one of the few games that is played in great fervor on nearly all continents and almost every other country in the world has a national football team, even if those teams lose badly in the world cup qualifiers! Even more famous than national teams are club football teams such as Manchester United Football Club or Barcelona that rake in millions of dollars in revenue every year and transfer players to each other in tens of millions of dollars. Yet another one of these clubs is the Manchester United Club Football Club that has produced greats such as Eric Cantona or David Beckham. However Eric Cantona is generally regarded as the greatest player the club has ever seen.

Despite what many people may think, Eric Cantona is not British but in fact is French and had played for French clubs such as Auxerre and Martigues before joining Manchester United. The stint at Manchester United was his last one. Nevertheless, it was the most important. Eric Cantona is known to be responsible for bringing the club to its current glory and has been known to be the chief factor for that purpose.

However despite being a great player, he does not have such a good record off the field. One of the major controversies he has gone through was when he assaulted a fan in 1995. After retiring from football, Eric has tried his hand at acting and has worked in films such as Elizabeth in which he starred along with Kate Blanchet. He also starred in the movie Looking For Eric in 2009.

During his stay at the Manchester United Football Club, he wore the number 7 shirt which was then worn by David Beckham, and Christiano Ronaldo.

Other clubs for whom he has played include Marseilles, Bordeaux, Nimes, Leeds United, and Montpellier.

After taking a break from Soccer, Eric Cantona joined the New York Football Club, New York Cosmos, in the capacity of director of soccer. As his mission at the club, he states that his job will be to make the club one of the best clubs in the US, and then one of the best in the world.