There aren’t many skills you can pull off in a football match that have the dual purpose of both giving you some space whilst also humiliating your opponent. That is why the nutmeg is such a key skill to learn, given the fact that it ticks both of those boxes.
By giving yourself more space in which to work, you can look to do everything from playing a pass through to taking a shot.
By humiliating the person that you’re playing against, you can make it more likely that they will play within themselves moving forward, or else attempt to make up for their humiliation in a way that also benefits you.
What Is A Nutmeg?
Virtually everyone will know all about the nutmeg, on account of the fact that it is a skill that has been around almost from the moment that man was able to kick a ball. The idea is that you play the ball through the open legs of your opponent, going around them whilst they’re still trying to figure out what just happened. If you get nutmegged yourself, you will know that it feels horrible, being the outfield equivalent of conceding a goal. If you can make your opponent feel negative about their game by nutmegging them whilst also getting into space to do what you want, that’s perfect.
You should be clear about what you’re doing: performing a nutmeg isn’t easy and you need to be both brave and willing to even attempt it. If it doesn’t come off then you’re effectively just passing the ball to the opposition team and they will be more than happy to accept the gift. It can also end up annoying your teammates, given the fact that you might end up putting your side in a dangerous position. That is why it is crucial to get your timing right when you look to perform a nutmeg, as well as to ensure that you continue running after the moment that you’ve passed the ball through your opponent’s legs.
More often than not, a nutmeg will be easiest to pull off when an opposition player is rushing in to try to tackle you. If they think that you’re going to push the ball to your left, for example, then they will likely come in and throw their right leg out wide in order to stop you from doing so. That means that there will be a large gap between their two legs that you can look to feed the ball through. From there, you can then run into the space that it will be difficult for the defender to get back into on account of the fact that they’ve turned themselves into a pretzel trying to stop you from nutmegging them.
Best Real-World Nutmeg Examples
Once you understand what the skill entails and when it’s most effective, it’s worth having a look at some real-world examples of nutmegs in actual matches.
One thing to bear in mind is that UEFA actually has a video on its site about the best nutmegs performed by Lionel Messi alone, such was his ability to shift the ball through the legs of an opponent.
For that reason, we’re not going to include any Messi nutmegs here, but suffice it to say that if you want to have a look at the UEFA video, you’ll soon get a sense of just why he was such a genius at the move.
Kanté v Spurs
Pulling off a single nutmeg isn’t easy, considering the fact that you need to get your timing exactly right. When you manage to nutmeg two people in the same move, it becomes somewhat outrageous. You can imagine, therefore, just how amazing N’Golo Kanté felt when he was playing for Chelsea in a match against Tottenham Hotspur and scored a goal that included not one, not two, but three nutmegs in the same shot.
It came in a League Cup semi-final second-leg when a ball from Eden Hazard bounced up perfectly on the edge of the box, which Kanté smashed with his right foot. Tottenham defender Ben Davies was the first to attempt to block it, but it went between his legs and towards Moussa Sissoko. He had little time to react, meaning that he was also nutmegged by the shot, which then flew at Spurs’ second-string goalkeeper, Paulo Gazzaniga. He probably wanted to cry as he saw the ball also slip under his legs, meaning that Kanté not only scored a goal, but did so by pulling off that incredibly rare feat of the triple nutmeg.
When Hazard then scored later on, it made it 2-1 to Chelsea on aggregate, with the match eventually going to a penalty shootout that Chelsea won.
George Best v Holland
George Best is considered by many to be one of the greatest to ever play the game, a genius with a football. Not only has he gone down in history for his ability on the football pitch, he was also the person who the Oxford English Dictionary credits with the first documented reference to the word ‘nutmeg’. It was the biography of the player written by Michael Parkinson, when he said, “I love taking the piss out of players too. Like ‘nutmegging them’. That’s sticking it between their legs and running round them.”
Best also performed a brilliant example of the move on the world stage against Holland. Not only was it against the Dutch in a World Cup qualifier, but it was done to arguably the best player in the world at that time in Johan Cruyff. Holland were on their way to a second successive World Cup final, but it was just five minutes into the game that finished 2-2 when Best received the ball wide on the left. He turned inside and skirted past three Dutch players before coming up against Cruyff. At that point, Best twice dipped his shoulder, feinting to go one way and then another, before slipping it between Cruyff’s legs and running around him to collect the ball.
Patrick Kluivert v England
It might seem odd to talk about a game in which your team got absolutely battered as being standout for the goal that you did score, but that is the case with this one. It features the Netherlands once again, this time in a group stage game from the European Championships in 1996 when England took on the Dutch at Wembley. The performance from the Three Lions that day has to go down as one of the best that they ever produced at their home ground, romping to a 4-0 lead over a team that was supposed to cause them all sorts of problems.
With only 12 minutes left on the clock and the Dutch heading out of the tournament, Patrick Kluivert latched onto a sumptuous layoff from Denis Bergkamp and poked the ball through the legs of the onrushing David Seamen. The match ended 4-1, so you would be forgiven for thinking that the goal was entirely immaterial. Instead, it actually meant that Holland qualified for the second group stage at the expense of Scotland thanks to goal difference. If it hadn’t been scored, the Scots would’ve progressed to the second stage of a competition for the first time in their history.