Cantona (33 page)

Wilkinson saw Rocastle as a long-term replacement for Gordon Strachan, who, as it happens, would still be playing at the top level after he had passed his 40th birthday, by which time the Londoner was rotting in the Chelsea reserves, having played a single season at Eiland Road. The Leeds manager was right in one respect: far too many of his players were on the wrong side of thirty to sustain another title-chasing campaign. No team had successfully retained the trophy since Liverpool in 1983–84, and the bookmakers agreed with the pessimistic appraisals of most columnists: Arsenal, the 1989 and 1991 champions, were 9/4 favourites, ahead of Liverpool (7/2), with Manchester United and Leeds both quoted at 4/1. Wilkinson’s thin squad would also feel the strain of taking part in the European Cup, and Éric, like all around him, anxiously waited for reinforcements – which never came, with dire consequences for his relationship with the Leeds supremo.

For the time being, all was still sweetness and light in Yorkshire. The champions were fitted with new suits for the forthcoming Charity Shield, a far bigger occasion back then, and rounded off their preseason with warm-up games against Nottingham Forest, VfB Stuttgart (their future opponents in the European Cup) and the Genoan club Sampdoria in the so-called ‘Makita Tournament’. This competition, if that’s the word, was organized over a single weekend at the start of August, and was the first occasion on which the new FIFA ‘no back-pass’ rule was implemented. Éric, who only played nine minutes of Leeds’s 2–1 victory over Stuttgart, replaced the newly arrived Rocastle at the interval of the tournament’s final (against Sampdoria), and missed three decent chances before Leeds were beaten 1–0 in front of 15,000 spectators who didn’t seem to care much more than himself for the game. Two days later, he looked far sharper in a 2–0 defeat of Norway’s 1991 champions Strømsgodset IF, scoring a virtuoso goal that gave a better indication of what was to follow at Wembley, when Leeds would face FA Cup holders Liverpool in the Charity Shield.

No fewer than five Liverpool first-teamers – John Barnes, Michael Thomas, Steve McManaman, Rob Jones and Jan Molby – were missing from Graeme Souness’s squad through injury, while a full-strength Leeds United could be assembled by Wilkinson, with Cantona wearing the no. 7 shirt for the first time in a competitive match. With 26 minutes of the game played, Rod Wallace found himself in acres of space on the left wing, and had all the time in the world to cut the ball back to Éric who, from the penalty spot, drilled the ball between two Liverpool defenders, high into Grobbelaar’s net. An Ian Rush header cancelled out the advantage, but not for long: as half-time loomed, a deflection put Tony Dorigo’s free kick out of the Liverpool goalie’s reach. Dean Saunders brought the scores level in the 67th minute, only for Cantona, again, to score a sumptuous goal. He first leapt to claim a Gary McAllister free kick, the ball falling into Rod Wallace’s path in the box. The winger, by accident as much as on purpose, laid it back to the Frenchman, who thumped a glorious angled shot across Grobbelaar, and celebrated by kissing his shirt in front of delirious Leeds supporters. That was 3–2 to United – then 4–2 four minutes from time when Wallace, claiming his third assist of one of the best and most competitive Charity Shields ever staged at Wembley, chased a ball that was kept in play after bouncing off the corner flag on the left flank. His deep, floated cross found Éric, who outjumped his marker at the far post. Grobbelaar had left his line, and heading the ball beyond him was an easy task for Cantona. There was still time for a comical own goal by Gordon Strachan, who took no less than three touches to ensure Mark Wright’s shot crossed the line, but not enough to deny Leeds United the second Charity Shield in their history.

No one had scored a hat-trick in the season’s curtain-raiser since Tommy Taylor (who lost his life in the Munich air crash) helped Manchester United demolish Aston Villa 4–0 in 1957. Cantona had registered a number of firsts on that glorious summer afternoon. He was the first Frenchman to feature and score for an English club at Wembley, the first to be named man of the match in England, earning his highest-ever rating to that point in his career (9/10) in the
Post
; he was also the first Leeds player to score three goals in a single game in the old stadium. The significance of these achievements didn’t escape him. Could there be a greater contrast to the destruction of France in Sweden eight weeks previously? As he walked up the thiry-nine steps to Wembley’s Royal Box, the voices of tens of thousands of fans chanting his name told him that he wasn’t an exile any more.

‘In just two months in England [
Éric was referring to the signing of his permanent transfer contract in May
], I feel more at home than I ever did in France,’ he said. ‘Now that I have mastered the perils of driving on the wrong side of the road, I can cope with everything.’ He struggled to express how much it meant to him, a Frenchman, to have taken part in ‘such a big occasion’, but fared better when his future was discussed. ‘Right now,’ he said, ‘I’m like a singer who goes to number one in the charts but has only one hit. I can’t say I’ve arrived yet. I’ve got to go on now and prove myself every weekend and convince everyone I can play in English football. It’s a completely different style and it has been every bit as hard as I thought it would be to adapt – but I have always been convinced I could get used to it.’ He also had kind, measured, respectful words for his beaming manager, words which must, however, be understood in the context of Éric’s own appreciation of his progress. He believed that his apprenticeship had ended, and that he had earned the right to start Leeds games instead of having to wait on the bench for an hour to go by before removing his tracksuit. Moreover, as Gary McAllister assured me, the majority of his teammates were of the same opinion. ‘I must take my hat off to Howard Wilkinson for helping me to integrate,’ Éric said. ‘He could have played me after I arrived last season, but it would have been very difficult for me to get used to it. But he made me wait. He told me I had to think about the English game and observe it, study it. I have done that, and I have worked hard in pre-season training because my target now is to get a regular first-team place.’

Wilkinson concurred with the latter part of this statement. ‘The hallmark of a good player is to consistently produce the level of which he is capable, week in week out,’ he said. His cautiousness was understandable. The Charity Shield remained a glorified exhibition game, and Leeds had had their share of good fortune against a severely depleted Liverpool side. Some of Wilkinson’s words nonetheless revealed more than prudence, betraying a deep-seated suspicion of a footballer whose qualities he could see, but whom he still doubted possessed the steel necessary to achieve greatness. In his twenty years in the game, he conceded, he had never dealt with a player of comparable ability, with the exception of John Barnes and Glenn Hoddle. But he couldn’t help but add a rider to his praise. ‘Éric was always the sort of player that you would step back from signing,’ he said. ‘I knew that and people kept telling me
“non, non, non”
when I was looking at him. They said you couldn’t trust him.
They may be right yet.’
The italics are mine, of course, but the words were Wilkinson’s; not only that: he spoke them as Leeds fans were still making their way back to Wembley Park tube station. The Yorkshireman’s call-a-spade-a-blooming-shovel approach had its virtues. Cantona knew where he stood in his manager’s estimation, and could accept it, but only for as long as it was obvious to him that he also had his trust. Éric’s elevation to the rank of demigod at Eiland Road jarred with Wilkinson’s team ethos.

It was all about the Frenchman as far as the
Post
and its readers were concerned. When their customary pre-season supplement was published on 10 August, a photograph of Éric holding the Shield aloft occupied most of its front page. ‘The best [of Cantona] is yet to come!’ proclaimed the paper. The
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was right – but the best wouldn’t come at Leeds, despite the hopes of a whole city.

The champions started their title defence with a nervous win over Wimbledon (2–1) on 15 August, with Cantona starting alongside Chapman and Wallace in an attacking set-up. He didn’t repeat his Wembley heroics, and only played a modest role in his team’s success. One of his crosses should have brought Lee Chapman a goal in the first half, but the Dons’ goalkeeper, Hans Segers, saved well from the tall centre-forward. This undistinguished performance – his seventeenth appearance for Leeds United – also saw him earn his first caution in English football for a clumsy foul on John Scales. The ‘wild man of French football’ had shown remarkable self-control until then. As Gary McAllister told me, ‘He never got in trouble with referees, really. Occasionally, we’d see he could be touchy.’ And intimidating: ‘People who don’t know Éric Cantona are always surprised by the size of the guy when they first meet him. For somebody who’s got such a lovely feel for the game of football, he’s a giant man! Six foot plus, and close to 90 kilos . . . But we didn’t see the ‘bad boy’. We were aware of some of his tackles back in France, but we never saw anything like that at Leeds United.’

Éric’s almost exemplary disciplinary record demonstrated his eagerness to be accepted into the fold, as did his work rate, which was in evidence again when Leeds brought a 1–1 draw back from Villa Park in the second game of the season. Wilkinson had by then opted for a policy of turnover which resulted in Rocastle, Strachan and Hodge being left out of the starting eleven. Only thus, he thought, could Leeds make the most of their slim chance to keep the championship trophy at Eiland Road. Reporters questioned the wisdom of this approach. Had not Leeds’ previous success been based on continuity? How would his squad accept the manager’s constant chopping and changing? ‘Players will have to get used to that disappointment,’ he grumbled. Wilkinson’s already perceptible doubts about his team’s qualities deepened into gloom on the occasion of Leeds’s next sortie, a stinging 4–1 defeat at Middlesbrough that marked Éric’s fourth consecutive start since his brilliant display in the Charity Shield. Cantona had been the best of a very poor bunch on Teesside, and deserved the fine consolation goal he scored late in the game. Somewhat to his surprise, Wilkinson realized that Éric could sustain a high level of performance despite the strenuous schedule he was subjected to. The visit of Tottenham would be his fourth game in ten days and, by all accounts, the high watermark of his nine months in Yorkshire.

The game was played late in the evening, on Tuesday 25 August, and the floodlights added to the majesty of Cantona’s masterclass. Spurs were swept away from kick-off. Éric could have scored as early as the sixth minute, when his bicycle kick nearly eluded Tottenham’s ’keeper Éric Thorstvedt. It fell to Rod Wallace to open the floodgates a quarter of an hour later. Spurs panicked. Justin Edinburgh fumbled, Éric pounced, 2–0 to the hosts; then 3–0, when David Batty’s clever chip allowed Cantona to place a header into Tottenham’s net. The pattern of the game remained unchanged after the interval. Both teams had barely restarted play when Éric was on hand to show his poacher’s instinct after a goal-bound Lee Chapman header had been half-cleared by the Spurs defence. This was his second hat-trick for Leeds in less than three weeks – but also, ironically, the last of his career. Éric hadn’t quite finished with Tottenham yet, however. Put through by Batty, he squared the ball to Chapman for a training-ground tap-in.

No one was calling him ‘the King’ just yet, but the Eiland Road crowd could justifiably claim to have witnessed a coronation, and the
Post
published a suitably ecstatic panegyric about France’s ‘greatest entertainer since Maurice Chevalier trod the boards’, a footballer who had ‘more time than a clock when the ball comes to him’. Gary McAllister extolled his friend’s qualities in more sober terms: ‘When Éric first came, there was a suggestion that he was more of a provider than a goalscorer, but he has slung that one aside in no uncertain manner.’ Even Wilkinson allowed himself to drop his guard – by an inch or so – and added his tuppenceworth to the praise lavished on his striker ‘who feels at home now’ and ‘is coming to terms with English football’, though the Eeyoreish manager couldn’t help but qualify his judgement thus: ‘Hopefully he will make the transition complete because he has a lot to offer.’

In fairness, Wilkinson’s appreciation of Éric’s contribution may have been tainted by his frustration at having to release his striker immediately after Tottenham’s rout. Bizarrely, Cantona was to fly to Paris the very next morning to join the French national team, which was playing against Brazil that very same day. Cantona’s call-up was pointless to the point of absurdity. He could not be expected to figure in the game, and his presence in Paris could only be explained by the desire of new French manager Gérard Houllier
²⁵
to have the whole of his squad by his side when he took his bow. Éric reluctantly agreed to travel to France, only to change his mind at the very last minute – and change it again, after he had missed the flight he had been booked on originally. He took his seat at the Parc des Princes seconds before Careca and Bebeto kicked off, wearing a sphynx-like expression that indicated that trouble was brewing. As indeed it was.

As Leeds were to play one of the title favourites – Liverpool – over the coming weekend, Éric immediately returned to England, wondering why on earth the French FA had thought it necessary to disrupt his preparation for such a crucial encounter. He had to vent his anger somehow, and decided to do it as spectacularly as he could, by granting an interview to Erik Bielderman of
L’Équipe.
Fortunately for him, this interview was never published, at least not in its original form. As we know, Cantona had been dismayed by Michel Platini’s removal from the position of national manager after the debacle of Euro 92 (‘Platini has gone, and the disappointment of what happened in Sweden was particularly difficult to accept’), so much so that he told Bielderman that he would rather make himself unavailable for selection than associate himself with those who (in his opinion) had masterminded the coup. ‘Take your pen and write,’ he told Erik, pompously enunciating every syllable like a schoolteacher addressing a class of five-year-olds, ‘“E-ric Can-to-na says: ‘I’m through with
Les Bleus.
’”’ A shocked Bielderman retired to his hotel room to file the story. This was dynamite.
L’Équipe
would be flying off the shelves with a headline like this one. But Erik could not bring himself to do it. He called Cantona and tried to make him understand what the repercussions of his decision would be. A long pause ensued. Then Éric broke the silence. ‘Take your pen, and write: ‘“E-ric Can-to-na says: ‘I’m through with
Les Bleus
. . . for the time being.’”’ The old Cantona was back, but as a comedian this time. Maybe the
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had been right to liken him to Maurice Chevalier after all?