Pele, Cantona promote Cosmos

Football greats Pele and Eric Cantona visited a Singapore school on Friday as part of their promotional tour for new MLS side New York Cosmos.

The pair, along with former LA Galaxy player and coach Cobi Jones, are promoting the new Major League Soccer side in Asia, and took their tour to Singapore Sports School on Friday, with the former Manchester United star Cantona posed questions regarding Sir Alex Ferguson and veteran Ryan Giggs.

“He is a great player (Giggs) and he is a great man too. He was there when I arrived in Manchester. He was already a player in the first team, he was 17, so I admire him, I admire a player who can stay in the same club for so long, maybe because Manchester is a special club,” Cantona said.

“But there are just a few players like (Paolo) Maldini and I don’t know, Bobby Charlton, players like this, who can stay so long at the highest level for more than 20 years. It is unbelievable.”

The Frenchman also praised Ferguson as one of the best tacticians in the world, and replacing him at Old Trafford would be an almost impossible task.

“Alex Ferguson is at the club, he is successful, he is unbelievable, he is one of the best managers in all time, in the world. He is still successful, he adapts to all kinds of generations, it is unbelievable,” he said.

“So I think after him it will be difficult, Manchester United is one of the biggest clubs in the world, so it will be always one of the biggest clubs in the world, but when he stops after, for a few years I think it will be a bit difficult.”