The eight-legged oracle has spoken: Paul the octopus says Spain will sink three-time champions Germany in their World Cup semifinal.
The floppy football fan from Oberhausen’s Sea Life Aquarium on Tuesday chose a mussel from a glass tank marked with a Spanish flag and ignored a tank emblazoned with Germany’s colors, spokesman Daniel Fey said.
But there could still be hope for the Germans.
The only time the usually-prescient Paul has erred in the past was ahead of the Germany-Spain final at the 2008 European Championship. Paul picked Germany; Spain prevailed 1-0.
“Paul has decided that Spain will win,” Fey said in a phone interview.
“But — and that’s a big but — Paul got it wrong only one time and that was also a game between Germany and Spain, therefore we think he just simply can’t get it right when it comes to this combination.”
Amid intense anticipation of Wednesday’s game, the eight-legged expert’s pick was even carried live by two national news television stations.
Paul, a two-year-old British born octopus with a purple-yellowish complexion and hundreds of suckers, wrapped himself around a pole between the two tanks, occasionally extending several of his eight legs toward the German glass before moving his whole body onto the Spanish side.
“Once he sat on top of the Spanish glass, he opened the lid with one tentacle and grabbed the mussel with another one,” Fey said.
He added that analysts are still pondering whether Paul’s forecasts on games between Germany and Spain may have to do with a potential case of colour blindness — the German tricolor of black, red and yellow may be hard to distinguish from the red-yellow-red stripes of Spain.
— AP