The World Cup is finally over as of today. Feels odd, doesn’t it? No football matches to watch tonight? What are you going to do with your life, besides move on and do what you always did the other 4 years?

Anyway, if you were following the World Cup this year, the name “Paul The Octopus” might have came up quite a bit. Interestingly enough, he has predicted all the World Cup matches quite accurately.

For those that don’t know:

Paul (hatched January 2008) is a common octopus living in a tank at a Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen, Germany, who is used as an animal oracle to predict the results of football matches, usually international matches in which Germany is playing. He came to worldwide attention with his accurate predictions in the 2010 World Cup.

During a divination, Paul is presented with two boxes containing food in the form of a mussel, each marked with the flag of a national football team in an upcoming match. He chose the box with the flag of the winning team in four of Germany’s six Euro 2008 matches, and in all seven of their matches in the 2010 World Cup. He correctly predicted a win for Spain against the Netherlands in the World Cup final on 11 July by eating the mussel in the box with the Spanish flag on it.[1] His predictions have thus been 100% (8/8) correct for the 2010 World Cup and 86% (12/14) correct overall.

Came across this image today (below), its a pretty interesting theory on how Paul the Octopus has been correct so far:

Heh. Magic? Octopus likes yellow? You decide. Then again, octopuses are color blind. Check out the link, and there’s also another theory about Paul preferring flags with contrasting stripes (the German flag has very high contrast).

Keep in mind also, that Paul is German, and historically, Germany has been pretty good at football over the years.

Probability wise, (from Wikipedia) “assuming Paul’s predictions were no better than fair independent coin flips, the probability of 12 successful predictions in 14 attempts is 91/1684 ≈ 0.56%” - A less than 1% chance.

Anyway, found this image today too.

Viva la Octopus Espanol!

Whether you believe in the logical explanation, or magic, or chalk it up to coincedence, this was probably one of the craziest World Cups ever - with goals that magically didn’t count as well as other mindboggling decisions by the referees, “extra goalkeepers” during the Uruguay vs Ghana match, a record number of yellow cards,  And the vuvuzela. Seriously, the vuvuzela. Aren’t you happy you don’t have to hear it anymore?

Anyway, even though the World Cup is over, remember you can catch up on your favourite moments of all the matches of the World Cup - just check out this link (Bplayer). There were a few matches I missed, and this is really one of the best legal places to watch the World Cup online from here

Coming soon to this blog: Party pictures (like you expect), and some interesting emotional insights and confessions (that you won’t expect…)