Football rentre à la maison

Fabien Barthez, Laurent Blanc and Zinedine Zidane
pose for the cameras in 1998

If England 96 was when football came home, France 98 was when it got a radical new haircut, swaggered into the living room having not been seen for a couple of months, nailed the cat to the TV, threw all the family photos out of a top-floor window and then left straight through the wall, joyfully, ferociously, shrugging as it went. Or so your faulty memory would have you believe. Or would it?

What If? #2 Cantona Hadn't Signed For Manchester United

Eric Cantona at Leeds in... '93?

Two Uniteds. Two sleeping giants. One enigmatic Frenchman. Magic Spongers welcomes Dan Forman whose parallel universe-centred debut is an absolute belter*

November 1992, Alex Ferguson's office. The phone rings.

"Alex, it's Martin. Listen, Leeds are on the line again. Howard Wilkinson wants to speak to you."

"Did he say what about? It better not be bloody Irwin again."

"No but he's very keen apparently. You're not going to sell him Denis Irwin are you?"
 
"No chance. But put him through. There's something I've been thinking about asking him anyway...

"Howard, how are you?"