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Conversely, Cantona’s talent could never have been so influential without personality. Cantona was a leader of Manchester United not just because of his talent, but through sheer strength of character. As Roy Keane so eloquently put it: ‘Collar up, back straight, chest stuck out, he glided into the arena as if he owned the f***ing place. Any arena, but nowhere more effectively than Old Trafford. This was his stage. He loved it, the crowd loved him.’

Cantona’s unwavering self-belief – it bordered on swaggering arrogance – was not a natural trait, but a deliberate tool of his success. ‘I’ve said in the past that I could play single-handedly against eleven players and win,’ he wrote in Cantona on Cantona. ‘Give me a bicycle and I believe I can beat Chris Boardman’s one-hour record.’ In Cantona’s psyche there was no room for doubt. Doubt is what leads to fear, and if fear cannot be controlled it eventually defeats you.

The Cantona effect at Manchester United became extraordinarily influential, but he was doubted when he joined. In hindsight, Leeds and their manager Howard Wilkinson are mocked for letting Cantona go, but they made a profit on the transfer fee they had paid to Nîmes less than 12 months earlier and had endured a rocky relationship with the Frenchman. Cantona failed to click with striker Lee Chapman, and later revealed his unhappiness at Elland Road. Wilkinson did the same: ‘Eric is not prepared to abide by the rules and conditions which operate for everybody else here.’