Eric Cantona

Football, and art. Éric Cantona - legend, maverick, troubled artist or just plain trouble - never saw a need to make a distinction between the two. For all the heat and noise surrounding his infamous Crystal Palace 'kung-fu kick', it is for the sheer exuberant beauty of his play that Éric Cantona is chiefly remembered by English football fans.

From driving Guy Roux's exciting Auxerre side of the late 1980s to the captaincy of the French national side, it was nonetheless in England that this unique footballing artist finally found a stage big enough to appreciate him.

At Leeds United he transformed the team into title contenders, but became a true talisman at Manchester United, where to this day fans sing of 'King Éric' and voted him United's 'Player of the 20th Century'. And yet the effortless style of Cantona's play could not hide a darker side to his temperament. In his own words, 'I play with passion and fire. I have to accept that sometimes, this fire does harm.'

Leading French football journalist Philippe Auclair has interviewed over 200 protagonists in Cantona's career - some of whom have spoken for the first time on the record - searching for the man behind the myth. Marrying a deep knowledge of Cantona's impact on the pitch with soulful, pin-sharp insight into the heart and inner thoughts of this most complex of characters, this is nothing less than the definitive biography of a one-time rebel of the French game, who rose to be the King of Old Trafford.