There have been several stories of ‘psychic’ animals predicting the winners of sporting events over the years and we have taken a look at some of the best, starting with a certain eight-limbed sea creature.
Paul the Octopus
Arguably the most famous of the lot is Paul the Octopus, who gathered worldwide attention when accurately predicting 12 out of 14 results in matches at the 2008 European Championships and 2010 World Cup.
Paul’s method of choosing involved his owners presenting him with two boxes containing food. The boxes were identical expect that they were decorated with the different flags for the teams in that upcoming football match.
Getting stuck into the psychic business at Euro 2008, Paul managed to predict four of Germany’s six matches at the tournament, not a bad return, but he went even better at the 2010 World Cup when predicting all seven of Die Mannschaft’s games – including the third-place play-off win over Uruguay.
Branching out a little further, Paul, who sadly died in October 2010, also chose Spain as the winner of the 2010 World Cup final. In total, he had a success rate just shy of 86 per cent and is the GOAT of the animal psychic world!
Achilles the Cat
Achilles the Cat attempted to take the throne from the legendary Paul at the 2018 World Cup but, despite making some headway in the selections, the attempts turned out to be futile.
Dressed in the red colours of Russia, Achilles picked between two bowls of cat food, each with different flags next to them for the upcoming match, and he predicted Russia’s wins against Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Iran’s win against Morocco, and Brazil’s victory against Costa Rica.
However, the feline, whose day job was hunting mice in St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum, incorrectly predicted Switzerland would win against Sweden and that Nigeria would defeat Argentina.
Achilles did also predict three out of the four matches in the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup and it was this ‘psychic’ ability that led to his World Cup gig a year later.
Mystic Marcus
Representing all the pigs out there is none other than Mystic Marcus, who guessed the winner of the 2014 World Cup and the Wimbledon tennis finals by picking apples.
Marcus, who also branched out into politics and predicted Brexit and that Donald Trump would win the US presidential election, was obviously feeling bullish after his success and plumped for Belgium, Argentina, Nigeria and Uruguay to reach the 2018 World Cup semi-finals.
Unfortunately, Marcus met his match with these predictions, with only Belgium reaching the last-four stage out of his choices.
It has been a decent run for Marcus, though, and his owner also revealed he regularly picked the results of Derby County matches. He correctly predicted the Rams wouldn’t get promoted to the Premier League in 2018, so fair credit to the now 11-year-old!
Marcus can be happy with his work in the ‘psychic’ industry of sporting animals and he rounds off our top three in good style.
