Nutmeg (association football)


A nutmeg is a skill used mainly in association football, but also in field hockey, ice hockey, and basketball. The aim is to kick, roll, dribble, throw, or push the ball between an opponent's legs.

Exponents in football

Kicking the ball through an opponent's legs in order to get the ball past them and back to the original player is a dribbling skill that is commonly used among football players. Owing to its effectiveness and being visually impressive, it is very popular among players and can be frequently seen being attempted multiple times throughout a game, whether by a single player or many different players. Some of the most notable practitioners include Riquelme, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Robihno, Neymar, Luis Suarez, Lionel Messi, Eden Hazard and Tobin Heath. Suarez in particular is known for having a penchant for executing it constantly, which led to the banner and saying 'Suarez can nutmeg a Mermaid.' during his time at Liverpool.

Street football game

There is also a street football game, originating in the Netherlands, which is called panna. This game depends on usage of this technique.

Origin of the term

The origins of the word are a point of debate. An early use is in the novel A bad lot by Brian Glanville. According to Alex Leith's book Over the Moon, Brian - The Language of Football, "nuts refers to the testicles of the player through whose legs the ball has been passed and nutmeg is just a development from this". The use of the word nutmeg to mean leg, in Cockney rhyming slang, has also been put forward as an explanation.
Another theory was postulated by Peter Seddon in his book, Football Talk - The Language And Folklore Of The World's Greatest Game. The word, he suggests, arose because of a sharp practice used in nutmeg exports between North America and England. "Nutmegs were such a valuable commodity that unscrupulous exporters were to pull a fast one by mixing a helping of wooden replicas into the sacks being shipped to England," writes Seddon. "Being nutmegged soon came to imply stupidity on the part of the duped victim and cleverness on the part of the trickster." While such a ploy would surely not be able to be employed more than once, Seddon alleges it soon caught on in football, implying that the player whose legs the ball had been played through had been tricked, or, nutmegged.

In other sports

In the National Basketball Association, Manu Ginóbili and Jamaal Tinsley employ the pass between the legs variant. Some commentators also use the term "five-hole" whenever this happens. The term "five-hole" is used in ice hockey when the puck goes between the goalie's legs into the goal.

In other languages

Nutmeg is the British English name for this technique.