Mr. Joga Bonito has a name. Oh, and he’s insane.

June 28th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

So you know that Joga Bonito guy, narrator for all those Nike soccer commericals? Yeah, total nutjob. We’ll get into that in a second. First, some background information.

His name is Eric Cantona and apparently he was quite the footballer in the mid-90’s for Manchester United – garnering four premiership titles with the club in five years and being dubbed their ‘player of the century’ in 2001.

But, that’s all rather boring. After dipping into his Wikipedia entry, we found out this dude is basically the Eli Cash (for his quotes) and Richie Tennenbaum (for his antics on the field) of professional soccer.

Some fun facts:

Before playing in England, Cantona played professional football in France, where he was born. During his tenure at numerous clubs he was suspended for:

A) Ripping off and throwing out his jersey after he was substituted for.
B) Insulting the national team coach on TV.
C) Getting into a fight with a teammate.
D) Throwing a ball at a ref after he didn’t like a call.

After the whole ref thing, he apparently was ‘fed up’ and retired from soccer in 1991 - at the age of 25. He was later persuaded to come back and start new in England with Manchester United.

In a January 1995 away match against Crystal Palace, Cantona received a red card and was sent off for a tackle placed on a Palace defender. He then proceeded to get all loco on a supposed rowdy Palace fan, Matthew Simmons, administering a kung-fu style kick to his chest. Cantona was suspended until the following October. (Peep the video of that here.)

At a press conference shortly after the incident, Cantona said only the following quote, then got up and left without wielding any more questions from reporters:

When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.

You getting the idea yet? If not, here are a few more quotes from Cantona:

I didn’t study; I live. You can’t study these things - life teaches them to you. You don’t find them in a book……I’ve read a lot of Socrates on page three of the Sun.

Sometimes in life one experiences an emotion which is so strong that it is difficult to think, or to reason. Sometimes you get submerged by emotion. I think it’s very important to express it - which doesn’t necessarily mean hitting someone. I am very mistrustful of people who are constantly overintellectualising things. It kills passion. You have to allow yourself to lose control from time to time.

Despite all his antics, Contana played a major part in leading just about every squad he played for to a league title and is highly regarded as a skilled player by colleagues and analysts. We think that’s important to note.

But yeah, totally insane. Or is he so totally insane that he’s totally awesome? (We think so.)

(Oh, and thanks commenter Phillips, for the tip on this whole thing.)