HAVING not so long ago sought to literally kick racism out of sport, now it seems that Erie Cantona is intent on kicking logic out the window. From agent provocateur to peacemaker and goaltaker extraordinaire, Cantona has surprised cynics, critics, sceptics and even optimists alike.
In the fall out from his kung fu assault on a Crystal Palace fan at Selhurst Park on January 25th of last year, no one but no one could possibly have envisaged Cantona remaining in English football. Not only has he returned, he has launched a one man crusade to win the double for Manchester United.
Even more startlingly, Cantona has kept his brooding, volcanic temper in check. This is the self absorbed player who incurred bans and fines in his time in France for a variety of verbal and physical assaults against fellow players, managers and administrators alike.
This is the player whose short fuse and occasionally spiteful use of his studs resulted in five sending offs for Manchester United up to and including the dismissal which sparked his stunning assault in Selhurst Park.
This is the player - purely a player, mind - who has incurred just one yellow card in 33 games, during which he has scored 17 goals since his return last October from a 10 month ban. He has scored in seven of Manchester United's last eight games. Five of these goals have been United's only goal of the game, in effect realising them nine points that they might not otherwise have won.
Of course, Cantona may not be able to keep a lid on his emotions for ever more, and part of the fascination with this remodelled version is the possibility that he could erupt at any moment who knows, even at the Dell today? There has, it is true, been the odd sighting of Eric of yore.
The one yellow card was deserved punishment for a nasty kick at Chelsea's Eddie Newton in December, and more recently in last Saturday's Manchester derby, Cantona briefly reacted, wrongly, to Nigel Clough of all people - for whom it is fair to say, a tackle represents something to do with fishing.
Convincing Cantona of the futility in tackling has been one of Alex Ferguson's greatest achievements. Almost literally, Cantona now lets ball carrying opponents drift past him without so much as an attempt to get in their way. Anybody else, and he would be pilloried for absconding his defensive duties - especially in the English game. Yet, that this has come as a particular source of relief to his teammates is confirmed by Dennis Irwin.
"I think a few people have pointed out that he hasn't bothered tackling, which has probably kept him out of a lot of trouble. I wouldn't say tackling is his greatest strength so he's probably better off not making any of them. He has kept his temperament in control which is a bonus for us the fact that he's playing in all the matches.
But the decision not to tackle is merely a by product of the more essential volteface in Cantona's complex psyche. For some one of Cantona's individualism and non conformity, the discipline and the resolve involved in the metamorphosis from enfant terrible to enfant modele must have been enormous.
Alas, the u turn has been conducted on his terms, with no apologies and, regrettably, with no interviews and hence no explanations. When asked recently by a journalist could he set up an interview with Cantona, Alex Ferguson quipped: "I'm lucky if he talks to me.
So we can only summise. Naturally, this story is far too complex to be explained by just one factor, for there must have been several, but uppermost among them, it would seem, is a sense of loyalty to Ferguson.
Irwin again: "Well, I think the manager showed a loyalty to him. A lot of people were baying for his head last season after what happened. They were saying the club should try and get rid of him but the club stood by him and I think he wants to repay that debt. The club doing that has probably given him a lot of security in the fact that the club wanted him that much and he kind of repaid that debt maybe, I don't know."
It would not have been unreasonable of Ferguson to submit to Internazionale's desire to bring Cantona over to Italy with his then closest friend at United, Paul Ince. At a stroke Ferguson could surely have acquired Dennis Bergkamp, a quality international player particularly adept at playing in Cantona's favoured role in behind an out and out striker.
Furthermore, Bergkamp always had a superior strike rate and disciplinary record. It seemed a logical transaction. Instead, Cantona stayed and Bergkamp joined Arsenal who, as a result, were widely tipped to win the league under Bruce Rioch. United, it should be remembered, were not, all the more so after an opening day 3-1 defeat to Aston Villa.
"You can't win the league with kids," opined Alan Hansen, one of those pundits who had predicted Cantona would leave English football after the Selhurst Park fall out. Another was Hansen's Liverpool sidekick of many years, The Irish Times resident analyst, Mark Lawrenson.
"I thought he (Cantona) would disappear into the sunset. I'm quite surprised and I think he owes a huge debt to his manager which he's repaid since he came back. I think, he's also had the responsibility of being captain on a couple of occasions and he's responded magnificently."
Another masterstroke by Ferguson, it would appear. "Cantona needs to be happy with his surroundings," suggests Lawrenson, in terms of football and the support he gets and I think, the thing for me about Cantona is that he needs to feel loved. Ferguson could easily have shown him the door and said thanks very much Eric but no thanks.
"Maybe some people spend their lives looking for that father figure that some people haven't had - which I think Cantona, hasn't - and maybe he's found that father figure in Ferguson."
If the remodelled Cantona has been motivated most of all by a sense of loyalty and gratitude to Ferguson, then by extension, as Irwin has intimated, the debt to United and its adoring fans must also be a significant factor. Lawrenson adds that Cantona's newfound responsibility would have been accentuated by the presence of so many young players in United's ranks.
Cantona would not be inclined to paint the town red with them, and by and large, keeps to himself. "You can have a conversation with him though he's generally very quiet But there's no harm in that," says Irwin.
Cantona lives frugally in a semi detached home with his wife Isabel and two young children. Isabel, a lecturer at Leeds University, is attributed with having the most settling and controlling interest over Cantona and the arrival of their second child, a girl, during his suspension may also have been part of the maturing process.
After Cantona was initially sentenced to two weeks in jail by Croydon magistrates for his assault in January last year, he immediately rang a pregnant Isabel out of a fear that she could hear the shocking news through the media.
If that prospective prison sentence jolted him then the subsequent community service he had to perform on appeal may also have made him appreciate the public affection he was held in. Allied to this was a sense of shame which Ferguson said Cantona felt at seeing the kung fu assault repeatedly replayed.
Coupled with all of this must have been a realisation that England constitutes his natural footballing habitat, given his comparative lack of success within France and at international level and that is constitutes his last chance in England.
Cantona may even feel he owes United one, or to be more precise he owes United a double, which they missed out on last season by a point in the league and by a goal in the Cup final. Citing 0-0 home draws against Spurs, Leeds and Chelsea, it's hard to dispute Ferguson's typically myopic assertion that: "I'm sure Eric would have got a goal in at least one of those games. His suspension definitely cost us the championship."
Lawrenson disagrees, as many analysts would, on the grounds that there's no guarantee Cantona would have shown the form of, recent weeks in the tail end of last season. Given all that's motivating a more focussed. Cantona at the moment, far from it.
Yet the fact remains that in the three league championship run ins he's been involved in (one with Leeds and two with Manchester United), Cantona has won three league medals. Remarkably, he has never lost an FA Cup tie.
Lawrenson estimates that Cantona adds "40 per cent" to United's game. "He's the last great player to play in these shores since Kenny Dalglish. It's a metaphor that's completely overused, great, but he's the last since Dalglish and also he's the best in that position since Dalglish."
"In fact there are so many similarities it's amazing, in terms of ability - the best with his back to play. He knows exactly what's going on around him all the time. There is his ability to find space for himself in all sorts of different areas of the pitch. It doesn't matter if he's man marked, he just drags people into all sorts of false positions and he has an uncanny knack of not only popping up in the right place and scoring but he also plays such a big part in the making of Man United's goals as well."
Irwin concurs, naturally, pointing out that the flurry of goals has been a bonus to his primary role as United playmaker. "I would say he would be in the same sort of role as Kenny Dalglish, and there's not too many of them knocking about with that kind of class."
Ferguson has said that even the United players readily accept that Cantona is the prime reason behind their ascent to the top of the Premiership and Irwin concedes as much.
"A lot of people think he's just a player with the ball at his feet, so to speak, but he's actually not bad in the air," says Irwin. "He's very strong, yet he's not slow either, most of all he's got great awareness and great vision. I would say nearly all of our play goes through him, to be honest, especially in the last few, months."
"We just need to give Eric the ball," concedes young Gary Neville disarmingly. "Give him the ball and he'll work wonders with it. He inspires everyone. He is every type of player you could wish for. He can be a target man, he can drop off, he scores goals, he can, pass ... he's got everything. He can adapt, too, to every type of game. Whether it's home or away, he'll play a different role with equal effect".
Most of all perhaps, Cantona's greatest quality is an ability to stay nerveless and, calm in games and at moments of the highest tension. Kipling's "If you can keep your head while all around are losing their" may seem a curious description of some one who launched an attack on a fan after being sent" off for kicking, but in the penalty area especially, Cantona calmly takes chances that others snatch at.
All but one (the last minute third against Reading in the Cup) of this season's 17 goals have significantly affected the result. Even last Monday's close range decider against Coventry was made easier by Cantona checking his stride and giving himself an extra second to steer the ball wide of Steve Ogrizovic.
At last then, Cantona may now finally be at peace with himself and may have found his true footballing home in Manchester United. This is his fourth season at United, during which time he has discernibly increased his strike rate from 63 goals in 210 games at French clubs and Leeds, to 56 goals in 110 games for United. Jean Philippe Le Clerc, a football writer with L'Equipe who has monitored Cantona's career closely, believes the turning point was his 10 month hiatus from the game.
"Always, when he joined a club he would say `I'm only passing by'. It was the same when he arrived at Man United. `I'm only passing by.' But now it looks as if he is staying indefinitely and I wouldn't be surprised if he spends the rest of his career in Manchester."
BURNING within may be a desire to see United win the European Champions League, not that Le Claire believes this will be enough. Alas for Cantona, the chances of a recall to the French national team seem remote. In an interview with L'Equipe published yesterday under the front page headings "L'Affaire Cantona," the French manager Aime Jacquet states: "In England Eric profits from playing to a system that suits him. Unfortunately I am not prepared to change a style just to suit one player."
The French have put together a record unbeaten run since Cantona was stripped of the captaincy after his Selhurst Park blow out. While heartily praising Cantona for his" form of late, even the possibility of him being recalled to fill the role behind strikers Youri Djorkaeff and Zinedine Zidane was given short shrift by Jacquet.
"He would be but Corentin Martins of Auxerre has really regained his form after injury and he fills that role perfectly."
Cantona's frustration must be acute. Le Clerc adds: "So far he has only played in one European Championship finals. That was fours years ago and it was a fiasco for the French and for Cantona, which was more due to the team than him. But this is very important to him and more than the Europeans finals in England this summer he wants to play in the World Cup in France in two years time."
Cantona, who turns 30 next month, will be 32 then. With his physical strength, disciplined and even frugal lifestyle off the pitch, he should certainly have two or three more good years in him. Indeed, they could well be his best years.
