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John O'Shea stars in hilarious campaign 20 years on from famous Figo nutmeg

John O'Shea stars in hilarious campaign 20 years on from famous Figo nutmeg

The Ferrybank Figo himself - John O'Shea had quite a career.

A 90th-minute winner at Anfield, a scintillating chip against the Arsenal Invincibles, that famous last gasp strike in Gelsenkirchen, Champions League medals and all the like - yet it's one moment for which O'Shea finds his name written into the footballing history books - that disgustingly cheeky nutmeg.

A UEFA Champions League Quarter-Final at Old Trafford, O'Shea and his Manchester United teammates came up against the might of the reigning champions Real Madrid in 2003, boasting the likes of Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane and Luis Figo in their ranks.

Figo, winner of the Ballon d'Or and Fifa World Player of the Year just two years prior, was no match for a 22-year-old O'Shea, who made a mockery of the Portuguese superstar by popping the ball through his legs with a sense of consummate ease the like of which has rarely, if ever, been seen again.

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20 years on from that instrumental moment in time which holds a worthy place in the annals of the world's greatest game, O'Shea's moment of infamy has now been immortalised forever in the form of a brand-new Just Eat campaign.

Just Eat have created a Michael Jordan-esque mockumentary centred around the iconic nutmeg, which makes for an amusing watch.

O'Shea features in the 'documentary', which pretends that the fame went to O'Shea's head after he pulled off the infamous piece of audacity.

With cameos from the likes of Shay Given and Owen Colgan, the campaign has garnered hundreds of thousands of views in recent days.

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"It’s crazy the amount of people that still talk about it and mention it. It was just one of those things… But I would have gladly let Figo nutmeg me 100 times and we win the game, if you know what I mean. The fact that they went and knocked us out was annoying. I’ll always remember the manager saying afterwards, about our ages, and the level you need to get to to be dominant in Europe, and understand European football. They’d done us. It took a while to get there, but we did in the end.”

Figo and co may have had the last laugh against United, but John will always be able to hold the bragging rights against him on a personal level.

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