The best nutmeg ever? Juan Roman Riquelme for Boca Juniors without touching the ball | OneFootball

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GiveMeSport

·6 December 2021

The best nutmeg ever? Juan Roman Riquelme for Boca Juniors without touching the ball

Article image:The best nutmeg ever? Juan Roman Riquelme for Boca Juniors without touching the ball

Juan Roman Riquelme was a footballer who embodied the phrase 'the beautiful game'.

Whenever he took to the field for club or country, the Argentine would nearly always conjure up some magic and leave those watching open-mouthed.


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Riquelme lit up European football at Villarreal for a number of years and was part of the side who famously reached the Champions League semi-finals in 2005/06.

But the four-time Argentine Footballer of the Year is perhaps best known for his two separate spells at Boca Juniors.

The left-footed genius is a bonafide legend at the Buenos Aires-based club and helped them win three Copa Libertadores titles.

Riquelme played 221 games for Boca Juniors in total, scoring 52 goals and assisting a further 53 in that time.

Article image:The best nutmeg ever? Juan Roman Riquelme for Boca Juniors without touching the ball

As well as those impressive numbers, the playmaker extraordinaire regularly produced moments of sublime skill.

Opposing players were often left humiliated by Riquelme and in one famous case, he managed to do just that without even touching the ball.

How is that possible you ask? Well, thanks to his outrageously high footballing IQ, the current vice president of Boca Juniors was able to nutmeg an opponent with possibly the cleverest dummy we've ever seen.

Article image:The best nutmeg ever? Juan Roman Riquelme for Boca Juniors without touching the ball

Take a look at the moment of magic here...

Video: Riquelme nutmegs a player without touching the ball

So, without making contact with the ball, an ageing Riquelme was able to nutmeg someone and find a teammate in space.

Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is a whole new level of brilliance and we can't recall that snippet of skill being repeated by someone else since.

Riquelme really is one of those footballers you could watch footage of for hours on end. Everything he did out on the pitch had a touch of class to it.

Article image:The best nutmeg ever? Juan Roman Riquelme for Boca Juniors without touching the ball

That's why the former Barcelona man will always be one of the most popular players to have graced the sport.

We may never seen someone quite like 'The Lazy Magician' again.

Quiz: Can you name the footballer based on their Wikipedia page?

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Article image:The best nutmeg ever? Juan Roman Riquelme for Boca Juniors without touching the ball

Who moved from Barcelona to Real Madrid in 2000?

Luis Enrique Luis Figo Javier Saviola Cristiano Ronaldo

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