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30th November 2017
09:58am GMT
"I don't mean to demean or criticise any of the great or very good footballers who played for me during my 26-year career at United, but there were only four who were world class: Cantona, Giggs, Ronaldo and Scholes."The 1996/97 season was Cantona's final campaign, and after a poor performance against Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League semi-final, the Frenchman knew that his heart wasn't in it. United lost both legs 1-0 and crashed out of the tournament to the eventual winners, suffering another frustrating season in Europe. The day after the second-leg at Old Trafford, Cantona told Ferguson that he was retiring at the end of the season. And despite his manager’s best efforts and the 12-months that remained on his contract, he was true to his word.
As a player, the forward was instinctive, gifted and passionate, and his decision to leave Old Trafford was shaped by these exact qualities that defined his time there.
"I was very passionate about the game and I always said that when I lost that passion, I would retire. Of course, nobody believed me but when I lost that passion, I retired. No regrets," Cantona said on Unfiltered.
The former Marseille forward claims that he could have continued to play for another decade, but he chose not to.
"Yeah, even ten years. But you can have five more years if you still have the passion and that just went like a light-switch. I waited and said to myself, 'It will come back, it will come back, it will come back' but it never came back so I retired. It's normal, it's just honest. I admire a player that can play at the same club for 20 years like a Ryan Giggs, a Maldini or a Xavi. They are unbelievable. You see after 20 years that they have the same passion for the game, but I'm not that type of person. I get bored very quickly."https://twitter.com/SportsJOE_UK/status/862574748500230145 For a generation of Manchester United fans, Cantona's decision to leave the club is still one of the most seismic and memorable moments of their years supporting the club. In Cantona's view, he felt that staying at Old Trafford wouldn't have been fair to the Manchester United players and fans because his performance levels would have dropped.
"I didn't feel the passion for the game. To play at the highest level, you have to be very careful about what you eat, what you drink, what time you go to bed, what you think. You have to be concentrated on the game. Secondly, to do that, you need the passion. If you lose a bit of passion, you lose a bit of something else and that means you can't play at the highest level. I play football to have the feeling that I'm improving something every time. In a game, what I can learn from the game? In a match, if I score one goal and miss another chance, I'm thinking about the one I missed. If I missed a pass, I'm thinking about why I missed it. I always looked at how can I improve it for the next time? But when you miss the passion, you realise that you will not play at the highest level. Passion helps you improve yourself, but when you lose that, you can't improve yourself anymore and I loved that feeling that I was improving while playing."Almost 20 years since King Eric left Old Trafford, there's one thing that's undeniable. He left United on his own terms, which is exactly how he played football. You can watch the exclusive interview here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4ebeHHsDuE
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