Everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) loves a good nutmeg. There is rarely anything more satisfying than seeing a player humiliate a fellow professional with an obscene piece of skill.
And, in an age where every single millisecond of action is recorded and translated into statistics, we can now figure out who the best nutmeggers in the world of football are.
As reported by fbref, here is every player with five or more nutmegs in each of Europe’s top five leagues. And, rather surprisingly, Lionel Messi doesn’t make it in. Not that it’ll be of any consolation to James Milner.
5 Nutmegs
11 players have got exactly five nutmegs so far this season. Paris Saint-Germain’s Kylian Mbappe is the biggest name in here, with Bayern Munich’s Leroy Sane also falling into this category.
The full list of players with exactly five nutmegs looks like this:
- Kylian Mbappe (Paris Saint-Germain)
- Youri Tielemans (Leicester City)
- Leroy Sane (Bayern Munich)
- Amin Younes (Eintracht Frankfurt)
- Hamed Junior Traore (Sassuolo)
- Leonardo Spinazzola (Roma)
- Junior Messias (Crotone)
- Bryan (Eibar)
- Raul Guti (Elche)
- Javier Ontiveros (Huesca)
- Jose Morales (Levante)
6 Nutmegs
There are nine players in Europe’s top five leagues who have racked up exactly six nutmegs this term, with five of them coming from the Premier League. In fact, no player in English football’s top flight has registered more than six nutmegs.
Meanwhile, no one in Spain has hit six yet, so well done to La Liga’s defenders, I guess.
- Angel Di Maria (Paris Saint-Germain)
- Daniel Podence (Wolverhampton Wanderers)
- Marcus Rashford (Manchester United)
- Matheus Pereira (West Bromwich Albion)
- Richarlison (Everton)
- Ademola Lookman (Fulham)
- Moussa Diaby (Bayer Leverkusen)
- Leonardo Bittencourt (Werder Bremen)
- Filip Duricic (Sassuolo)
7+ Nutmegs
Achraf Hakimi (Inter Milan) – Narrowly missing out on a podium place is Inter Milan’s Achraf Hakimi. The Moroccan wing-back has a total of seven nutmegs this season.
Piotr Zielinski (Napoli) – No player in Serie A has accumulated as many nutmegs as the Poland international, who has eight. This puts him in third place from Europe’s biggest leagues.
Jadon Sancho (Borussia Dortmund) – Man Utd may already have the Premier League’s top nutmegger, but they could have had the second best in Europe. A lot has been made of Sancho’s form this season, but the winger has ten nutmegs this season, four clear of anyone else in the Bundesliga.
Neymar (Paris Saint-Germain) – With Mbappe and Di Maria already making this list, playing against PSG must be a defender’s nightmare. It’s no surprise that the tricky Brazilian is at the top of the nutmeg charts, recording 12 nutmegs.
Add Sportslens to your Google News Feed!
