Meaning:To play the ball through the legs of an opponent and collect it on the other side. The nutmegger feels like George Best, the victim wants the ground to open up and swallow him.

Origins:One day we'll find a sporting phrase that has an undisputed origin, but this, alas, isn't the day. So, take your pick:

(1) According to Peter Seddon, author of Football Talk: The Language and Folklore of The World's Greatest Game, the term has its roots in the dodgy practices of the nutmeg trade when some exporters would mix in lumps of wood with the cargo to trick buyers into thinking they'd received the full weight of nutmeg they'd ordered. And, so, "nutmegged" came to be defined as Victorian slang for being "tricked or deceived, especially in a manner which makes the victim look foolish". Seddon claimed the term made its way in to football to describe one player tricking another and making him look foolish by nutmegging him.

(2) Alex Leith produced another theory in his book Over the Moon, Brian: The Language of Football, suggesting that nutmeg is just an extension of "nuts", that indelicate slang for that delicate part of a chap's anatomy under which the football is passed during a nutmeg.

(3) None other than Jimmy Hill claimed the term was first used in the 1940s and was simply based on the cockney rhyming slang for leg - "he played the ball through his nutmegs".

Other languages:In Hungarian football the nutmeg is known as the koteny, which means apron - ie, if he were wearing an apron the ball wouldn't have gone through his legs. In France it's known as the petit point, or little bridge, in parts of Brazil janelinha (little window), poorten or panna (little gate) in Holland, and in Germany, Spain and Italy they use their word for tunnel.