The former French footballer said he was embarking on a career as a singer, with the release of two titles, before a European tour.
By VD with AFP
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GLoire du foot, then actor and now singer: Éric Cantona released a piece on Friday heralding a tour in the fall of 2023 and an album for 2024. At 57, “The King”, as he was called in the time of his splendor at Manchester United (1992-1997), sings in English on “The Friends We Lost” (“The friends we lost”), available on the platforms. The rocky voice of the former player of the France team ends up melting into this melancholic piece with piano and strings.
This title prefigures a series of concerts in the fall, Cantona Sings Éric (Cantona sings Éric), before an album on the horizon 2024. The tour will logically begin in Manchester, the city which made him king of football. Manchester United fans still consider him a hero in their pantheon. His “kung-fu” kick on an opposing supporter in the stands in the middle of a match in 1995 (which earned him a long suspension) had in no way damaged his aura. “That’s what I like, me, the live. That’s why I do it. Because there will certainly be plenty of imperfections, plenty of accidents. Where there is never an accident, there is never a moment of genius,” he explains in The Parisian. His tour will then pass through Ireland, Switzerland and France.
Actor in film and television
Chance of the calendar, the former Manchester United striker releases this song while another Manchester figure offers an album on Friday. Noel Gallagher, ex-half of Oasis (he has been angry with his brother Liam since the group split in 2009) publishes Council Skies, new solo album. The Gallagher brothers are fans of United’s rival Manchester City, but don’t hold it against them, as Cantona starred in the clip Ounce by Liam Gallagher.
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Music is not unknown territory for Cantona. In France, his voice has already been heard with the group Dionysos, in songs by Bernard Lavilliers or Rachid Taha. But, until now, his conversion had mainly led him to cinema or TV screens. Looking for Eric, where he plays himself, directed by Ken Loach, is a centerpiece of his fairly extensive filmography. Recently, Cantona was talked about in France in the TV movie The Colossus with Feet of Claywith a lead role inspired by the career of former rugby player Sébastien Boueilh, who was raped as a teenager (broadcast on TF1).