Cantona Says World Cup Loss Was All Raymond’s Fault

Hurray! At last! An excuse to post this Cantona picture. (I love Eric Cantona.)

An interview in Australian Four-Four-Two with M. Cantona showed up on my screen this morning where he discusses the World Cup loss to Italy. His conclusion was that this loss had nothing to do with Zinedine Zidane and the infamous headbutt. Instead it was a strategic error on the part of coach Raymond Domenech.

“From the start of the second half, the Italians refused to attack. When you see (Thierry) Henry have to come to get the ball and cross and there is no-one in the penalty area to get on the end - what’s the point of having four defenders and two defensive midfielders. It’s a serious, very serious tactical mistake. Worse than Zidane’s headbutt.”

Show of hands from those who disagree. Hmm… Anybody? You in the back? No? Just scratching your shoulder? Okay, then.

I’ve always wondered if I was the only one who thought that Raymond got off a little easy on the criticism after the game because of the headbutt. Since 99.999% of the talk after the game was about Zidane, and the headbutt made the French love the team even more… Well, perhaps Raymond should thank Zizou for saving his job? What do you think?

And about that headbutt, Eric?

For him, [Zidane] football is the pleasure of playing. It was not logical, he did not calculate. That’s not to say that I am encouraging people to start headbutting.”

Cantona claimed that Zidane’s headbutt could not be compared to his own assault on the Palace fan. “I jumped on a supporter,” said Cantona. “It’s not the same as reacting to someone on the field, it’s not the same gesture. What I did was more serious.”

Can’t disagree with that either. For comparison purposes, let’s take a look once again at Cantona’s reference point for the Zidane headbutt, shall we?