50 years of MHSC: escapades, magical goals, explanation with Nicollin… Cantona’s passage in chiaroscuro at Montpellier

Eric Cantona n'est resté qu'une année à Montpellier. Suffisamment pour y laisser une trace indélébile. Midi Libre – Midi Libre

His time at the club did not last longer than that of a comet, capable of setting a locker room alight and scoring decisive goals of great class during the epic in the Coupe de France.

A special issue of 84 pages

Condensing half a century of history into 84 pages. This is the challenge taken up by the sports editorial team at Midi Libre in this special edition on the 50th anniversary of the MHSC. Available on newsstands on December 11 for just 5 euros, this glossy magazine will allow you to relive the great moments in the history of the Montpellier club through our “50” who made the MHSC. Players, coaches and builders, of course, starting with this “Nicollin Saga”, told by Laurent and Colette, the wife of the late Loulou. A special issue packed with anecdotes and unpublished photos with an exclusive interview with Olivier Giroud.

A special issue available on newsstands. Midi Libre

“I have only known three people in my life who caused silence when they entered a room: Tapie, Nicollin and Canto.”

In one sentence, Pascal Baills has captured the stature of the character. Is it because he scored a hat-trick against Blanc's Montpellier in the final of the 1985 Gambardella, with AJA, that Eric Cantona will inspire such respect in the Montpellier locker room ?

Not only that. Because when he landed on the banks of La Mosson in 1989, Eric Cantona had already become Canto. At 23, he had made a name for himself at Auxerre, had already become French champion with OM but, still under contract with the Marseille club, he was returning from a loan to Bordeaux in the form of a blank year. Behind the shadowy look and the stature of a commander, the player sometimes had trouble cohabiting with the man with peremptory judgments and an explosive character.

Tapie asked Nicollin to take him on loan

The hand extended by Montpellier for a one-year loan – and more if there was a connection – was that of a possible revival. Certainly, Bernard Tapie forced his friend Loulou's hand a little to place his cumbersome protégé. But the Montpellier president thinks he has smelled a good deal. By recruiting Stéphane Paille at the same time, Loulou caresses the illusion of reconstituting the shock duo of the French espoir team, crowned European champion in 1988 with Blanc and Guérin, two Hérault midfielders.

Cantona arrives in Hérault at the same time as his buddy Stéphane Paille. A dynamic duo that won't last. Midi Libre – ARCHIVES

The operation, carried out with the hard financial support of local authorities, caused a stir in the microcosm and placed Montpellier in the Parisian spotlight. This attempted takeover bid for the most promising football talents, married to the young shoots of the Hérault nursery, caused the club to change its name and size.

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National media attracted like flies

But after a calm and rosy start to the season, Canto would kick in a much less controllable way than the Camargue horses that Louis Nicollin already venerated.

“We couldn't hear him, he was very professional, very rigorous, explains Baills. In training, he would come in a quarter of an hour before everyone else. He was demanding with himself, and therefore with the others. Canto was the aesthete, the beautiful gesture linked to efficiency.”

Dressing room divided between the “pros” and the “anti” Cantona

A gesture rare and an efficiency slow to come, to the great displeasure of the supporters and Aimé Jacquet, the new coach who struggles to reconcile all these offensive talents, Carlos Valderrama included.

Canto among his teammates. His arrival had however created clans in the locker room. Midi Libre – Midi Libre

Very quickly, Cantona will close up and the locker room will split into two clans. The pros and the cons. “He had such a stature that few people outside approached him,” Baills continues. “He was starting to become Canto but he had a catastrophic first half of the season.”

Dismissed by Nicollin after an altercation with Lemoult

And which turns into a psychodrama on October 21, an evening of defeat in Lille. The striker takes a harmless remark from Jean-Claude Lemoult personally and wipes his boots on the face of the midfielder, one of Loulou's men in the locker room.

“You will never wear the La Paillade jersey again”. This peremptory phrase from the president accompanies the dismissal of the idol. The affair takes a national turn as Euro 1992 looms on the horizon for this golden generation. Coach Michel Platini, who has not yet forged strong ties with Loulou, is upset by it. Sports Minister Roger Bambuck too.

National Affair

Louis Nicollin refuses to acknowledge that he has gone too far but ends up giving in under pressure from communities waiting for a return on their investments. After an article from Midi Libre that opens the door to a reconciliation, an explanation between men takes place in the early morning in a parking lot of his cleaning company.

Eric Cantona at the Parc des Princes during the 1990 Coupe de France final. Midi Libre – Archives

Reinstated, Canto will shine all the less as the ghost of Stéphane Paille leaves him in November. Aimé Jacquet, who was dismissed, would follow in February 1990.

“Canto ? You don't change the character he has, remembers Laurent Nicollin. He was always like that. But I remember someone who was very respectful of the hierarchy, who listened to things. And who had a very good season with us.”

Reframed by Mézy, he shines brightly

A season in chiaroscuro, like the character. Michel Mézy will have to frame him, in his very pailladin way, to embark him on an operation to maintain and an epic in the Coupe de France which will save this Odyssey to the point of giving it the outlines of a trompe-l'oeil.

In the end, the statistics are stubborn. They say much more than those of a star of little weight in a season of struggle. With 14 goals, Cantona will be, equal to Laurent Blanc, the best Montpellier scorer when the time comes to count. So decisive in the triumphant run in the Cup with a hat-trick against Louhans-Cuiseaux and three other goals including this genius volley, in the semi-final at Geoffroy-Guichard, which alone may have justified the three million francs loan paid to OM.

A French football that has never been able to understand him

Then leaving for the Canebière, the striker will remain Canto, this misunderstood and uncompromising artist lost a year later in Nîmes on the Costières pitch when he threw the ball at the referee. A final layer of red, one too many, before leaving France which will never have been able to hold him or understand him. At Old Trafford, he will find a universe and a kingdom to his excess that will make him “King Eric”. A legend, who passed through Montpellier almost by accident.

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