ALEX McLeish met up with Eric Cantona at the Street Scotland Annual Dinner in Glasgow last night – and was reminded of the night the French football genius consigned Scotland to defeat in a World Cup qualifier in Paris.
Cantona was the guest of honour at the charity event and spent time speaking to Scotland manager McLeish beforehand about Sir Alex Ferguson – who managed them at Manchester United and Aberdeen respectively.
Sir Alex is recovering from the brain haemorrhage he suffered back in May and made his long-awaited return to Old Trafford for a Premier League game against Wolves last month.
McLeish revealed that Cantona would be going to visit their legendary manager during his visit to the United Kingdom. “It’s great to have a character like him here,” he said. “It’s an amazing coup to bring Eric to support such a wonderful project. He’s going to see the gaffer at the weekend, I think.
“Sir Alex really got the best out of Eric and that sums him up. Probably Eric got away with a wee bit more than one or two others, because of the genius in him.
“There were stories going around, players saying ‘he’ll win us games, he can do what he wants’. Of course, Sir Alex wouldn’t allow that. But he definitely gave Eric some great man management.”
McLeish squared up to Cantona when Scotland took on France in an Italia ’90 qualifier in Paris back in 1989 – and the forward scored two goals in a 3-0 triumph.
“We didn’t do too bad that night in Paris, we felt,” he said. “But France hit us on the counter a couple of times and Eric scored twice.
“When I then went to see him at Manchester United, with Sir Alex, the first thing he said was ‘yes, of course I remember you – we beat you three-nil and I scored two!’ But we beat them at Hampden, the 2-0 win in the rain, a great night.”
Street Soccer Scotland delivers a range of football related personal development and training programmes to socially disadvantaged adults and young people across Scotland including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen.
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