Nutmeg | Soccer Speak

Welcome to the Soccer Tavern, where we’re discussing the history, culture, and philosophy of the beautiful game. My name is Dave and in this video, we’re talking about where the soccer term ‘nutmeg’ comes from. Pull up a seat & let’s start the discussion.

For those who may not know, nutmeg is the term used when a player with the ball plays it through a defender’s legs. The act of nutmegging or being nutmegged is widely considered the highest form of humiliation on the soccer pitch.

The purpose of this video is to discuss why this move is called a nutmeg in English-speaking countries.

Like many things in soccer, the true origin is not known, but there are a few possible explanations.

1. The first explanation is that in the late 1800s, the seed known as nutmeg was one of the most in demand and expensive goods being traded from America to England. At the time, nutmeg was weighed in bulk rather than individually inspected. For this reason, some American merchants would include wooden replica nutmeg mixed with real nutmeg to increase the price of the good. Through this dubious practice, the term nutmegged in England came to mean you were tricked by the cleverness of the other person. Obviously if you’ve ever been nutmegged on the soccer pitch, you can relate to this feeling of helplessness and sheepishness
2. Another explanation is the term as it relates to soccer came from cockney rhyming slang. Quick lesson on cockney rhyming slang. It was developed in the East End of London in the 1940s as a way for merchants and street salespeople to communicate without the people walking by understanding what they were saying. For example: “I’m enjoying this Pig’s Ear” meant “I’m enjoying this beer” because Pig’s Ear rhymes with beer. NutMEG was one of the terms for leg and so when you played the ball through a person’s legs, you played it through their nutmegs. The term then evolved into nutmegs referring to the ball being played between a person’s legs.
3. And the third explanation is that the sport was mainly played by males in its early days and males have appendages that are informally known as nuts. Nut is the first part of nutmeg and the term evolved from this.

So, those are the possible explanations for where the term nutmeg comes from. I’ll leave it up to you to determine which you’d like to believe.

If you have anything else to add to the discussion, please let us know in the comments section below the video.

Thanks for stopping by The Soccer Tavern. Hope to see you again soon. Cheers.