ADVERTISEMENTEngland losing on penalties, infighting in the Dutch camp and Germany reaching at least the semi-finals despite having their weakest team for a generation.
It seems it doesn’t matter where the World Cup is held, at least one of these age-old cliches will happen.
Except, ever since 2010, we have a new one: stories of ‘psychic’ creatures predicting World Cup results.
It was all started by Paul the Octopus, who reportedly correctly predicted all seven of Germany’s 2010 World Cup matches.
To honour Paul – and the quite-frankly ridiculous tradition he has given birth to – euronews has brought together some of the best World Cup psychics.
#[View the story “Six of the best World Cup ‘pet psychics’” on Storify]Six of the best World Cup ‘pet psychics’
Here euronews brings together six of the stupidest, funniest and outrageous World Cup ‘pet psychics’ – animals or sea life with a seemingly special talent for predicting football results.
Storified by euronews· Fri, Jun 20 2014 13:28:26
England losing on penalties, infighting in the Dutch camp and Germany reaching at least the semi-finals despite having their weakest team for a generation.
It seems it doesn’t matter where the World Cup is held, at least one of these age-old cliches will happen.
Except, ever since 2010, we have a new one: stories of ‘psychic’ animals or sealife predicting World Cup results.
It was all started by Paul the Octopus, who reportedly correctly predicted all seven of Germany’s 2010 World Cup matches.
To honour Paul – and the quite-frankly ridiculous tradition he has given birth to – euronews has brought together some of the best World Cup psychics.
1 PAUL THE OCTOPUS
The original and the best? This is Paul predicting a win for Germany against Argentina in the quarter finals of the World Cup 2010 in South Africa. Germany won the match 4-0.
Raw Video:Psychic Octopus Predicts German WC Winassociatedpress
He went onto forecast a win for Spain in the semi-finals, a prediction that again proved correct. This angered German fans, prompting calls to roast and eat him!
Reports emerged in October 2010 that Paul had died in his tank.
Google used a ‘doodle’ of Paul the Octopus on its search engine homepage to celebrate the World Cup 2014 in Brazil.
ADVERTISEMENTGoogle pays homage to Paul the Omniscient Octopus amidst World Cup fever: http://t.co/aiR3vi3YvG http://t.co/xcLEu4jtVveValue
2 TURTLES ARE NOT AS GOOD OCTOPUSES? Brazil-based Cabeção the turtle predicted a win for Mexico in their match with the hosts of the World Cup 2014. Despite correctly predicting Brazil’s win over Croatia in the opening match, it seems turtles are not as good as octopuses when it comes to predicitons. Brazil drew with Mexico 0-0.
‘Psychic’ turtle predicts Mexico win over Brazil in World Cup – videoGuardian
3 DON’T GET THE HUMP IF SHAHEEN IS WRONG
Shaheen the Camel was reportedly discovered by a Gulf News journalist. Here it correctly predicts the result of Brazil versus Croatia.
ADVERTISEMENTIt was said to have a 100% record, as of June 17, after also correctly predicting the results of Spain vs Netherlands and England vs Italy.
Brazil vs Croatia: Shaheen the camel’s World Cup prediction of the daygulfnewstv
4 NOT ALL ANIMALS PANDER TO THE TREND OF FORECASTING RESULTS
Panda cubs at an enclosure in China had been reportedly put forward to predict World Cup results, by choosing their food from labelled boxes. But the facility in Chengdu pulled the idea at the last moment.
China bans baby pandas from predicting 2014 #WorldCup winners http://t.co/PHQfOPpJhj http://t.co/UbwowB1FJFRT
ADVERTISEMENT5 ELLE EST FANTASTIQUE AT PREDICTING?
This is an elephant at a German wildlife park making a host of predictions, iincluding correctly forecasting that Germany would beat Portugal.
Nelly The Elephant Is Ready To Be World Cup’s New Animal Psychic CelebrityProfessional sports journalists and bloggers covering NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, college football, college basketball, MMA, NASCAR, Golf, Tennis, Olympics and more. ThePostGame provides in-depth analysis, commentary and reporting on the most important sports stories of the day.
6 MADAMA SHIVA THE GUINEA PIG
This a guinea pig predicting the Swiss to beat France in their World Cup 2014 fixture.
ADVERTISEMENTUnusually, no food is seemingly used, with the guinea pig just having to cross into one of the teams’ halves to predict a win.
WM-Orakel Schweiz – Frankreich: Was sagt Madame Shiva?swissaid