Ever since his infamous "seagulls and trawler" speech, delivered in 1995 after he was banned from football for nine months, Eric Cantona has been known to be good for a quote.
So it was that, upon receiving the UEFA President's Award from Aleksander Ceferin at Thursday's Champions League group-stage draw, the former Manchester United forward delivered -- how can we best describe it? -- an "idiosyncratic" acceptance speech.
Wins the 2019 UEFA President's Award... Gives bizarre cryptic speech to confuse everyone in attendance.
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) August 29, 2019
Eric Cantona, ladies and gentlemen 😂 pic.twitter.com/qNgZB0cFoW
Cantona began with a line from William Shakespeare's King Lear: "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport."
And the Frenchman, who has made a career as an actor since retiring from football, continued:
"Soon the science will not only be able to slow down the ageing of the cells, soon the science will fix the cells to the state and so we will become eternal. Only accidents, crimes, wars will still kill us but unfortunately crimes and wars will multiply. I love football. Thank you."
We'll be honest and say we are not sure what exactly the great man meant, but the good news is that Cantona still loves the sport that he illuminated as a player!
