Eric Bishop, is a Manchester United fan and a postman from Manchester who is having a rough go of it. He is caring for his two stepsons because their mother, Eric's second wife, who was just released from prison has not returned. The boys are giving him a run for his money but he does the best he can. His daughter depends on him for baby sitting, but who can he depend upon?
Eric looks back to a simpler time. Singing songs, drinking beer and cheering for Manchester United and "the greatest center forward that the world has ever seen, : Eric Cantona. His friends do their best to try to cheer him up, but it has been seven years since his wife left and he is still in a funk.
Eric is in need of advice and he starts talking to the poster of his idol, another Eric, French footballer Eric Cantona. Cantona appears to him and starts giving advice about getting his life, and his family's life in order. Cantona makes him open an old trunk and face his past. Eric has to meet his ex-wife Lily, as they exchange Sam's daughter for babysitting. He doesn't think he is up to it. Cantona tries to build him up.
Cantona: "He that is afraid to shake the dice will never throw a six."
Cantona: "If you do not enter a tiger's den, you cannot get his cubs."
When Eric meets his ex-wife to pick up the baby, he is nervous, but things go fine. His step-son the goes off to a Man U game with his gangster friends. Eric tells Kantona of how he left Lily. Kantona encourages him to talk to her. Eric then heads off to the bar with his mates to watch the match.
FC United rebel fans chant :
Won't pay Glazer or work for Sky,
We still sing City's gonna die,
Two United's but the soul is one,
As the Busby Babes Carry On
Then Eric sees his step-son getting roughed up by the hoodlums. he tries to talk to him but gets nowhere.
Catona tells him: "You must say no."
Eric talks to Cantona and asks him about some of the highlight plays of his career, but Cantona doesn't remember.
Eric: "All right. sweetest moment ever."
Cantona: "It wasn't a goal."
Eric: "It's got to be a goal Eric."
Cantona: "No"
Eric: "C'mon. last minute, FA Cup final against Liverpool. Beckham takes a corner. The goalie runs out. He punches it away. It hits your chest, hits the floor on its way up. Bang, you thwack it right in the net."
Kantona: "No"
Eric: "Wimbledon, It's got to be Wimbledon. You're going towards the ball. The balls coming in. You're sussing out the trajectory of it, the angle of it, the spin of it, the way the wind's blowing, the speed of the wind, everything. You stick your right foot out. You stop it in mid-flight. It bounces up about a foot off your leg. You come back. You whack it in. The most perfect volley in the world. In it goes. It's a goal. It's got to be a goal, Eric.
Cantona: "It was a pass."
Eric: "A pass?"
Cantona: "Yeah."
Eric: "Ah. My God. To Irwin against the Spurs. Yes! Beautiful."
Cantona; "I knew how clever he was, left, right footed. Came in a flash, I just flicked it with the outside of my boot. Surprise everyone. He took it in his stride, and my heart soared."
Eric: "A gift."
Cantona: "Yeah, like an offering to the great god of football."
Eric: "What if he had missed?"
Cantona: "You have to trust your teammates. Always. if not, we are lost."
Eric starts talking to Lily, and slowly the barriers start to come down. Kantona gets Eric to dance again. Kantona then starts to get Eric in shape and Eric then starts to use some tough love with the kids. No work - no food. His life is starting to come together.
Then Eric finds a gun hidden in the house. The gangsters are having Eric's step-son hiding a gun for him. His step=son, Ryan, wrestles the gun away and hits Eric with the gun. Eric goes looking for him but he can't find him, but there was a shooting. When Ryan comes home he puts the gun on the table. He tells Eric that the gangster is making him hold it. The gangster shot someone because someone insulted him at a club.
Eric then goes to see the gangster, but he won't take the gun back. The police then raid the house, looking for the gun, but they don't find it. Kantona tells Eric that he must depend on his teammates.
Cantona: "If they're faster than you, don't try and outrun them. If they're taller, don't outjump them. Right? If they're stronger on the left, you go right. Remember?"
Eric decides that the the thing the gangster is afraid of is losing face, so on the way to the next match they have the bus stop at the gangster's house. "Operation Cantona" is on.
"What a friend we have in Jesus."
He's our savior from afar.
What a friend we have in Jesua.
And his name is Cantona."
They get out at the gangster's house with sticks and bats and all wearing Cantona masks. They destroy the car and the house and film it all. They tell the gangsters to never go near "that" family again, and the movie will go on YouTube.
This film's message is not really about football – it's more about the value of friends and people you can rely on when all seems lost. Footbol is like life. Eric is amazed that Catona enjoyed passing more than scoring, and that is a message that is important to all of us in life and football.
Sometimes an assist is more important than a goal. You have to trust your teammates. I really love everything about this movie.
