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7/6/10

World Cup Soccer: Paul the psychic octopus picks Spain to beat Germany

Nein! Say it ain’t so. Paul, the octopus that has accurately predicted Germany’s triumphs throughout this World Cup is predicting that Spain will knock out Germany in Wednesday’s semifinal.

Paul, who predicts the winner by picking mussels out of a box labeled with the country’s flag, plucked a morsel from the Spanish box. But German fans take heart, the eight-armed prophet has an 80% lifetime record. He was also wrong when these two teams met in the 2008 European Championship. He picked Germany to win, instead Spain took that match 1-0.

A spokesman at the Oberhausen, Germany aquarium that Paul calls home says that colour-blindness may have had confused the creature. The black, brown and red of the German flag might be tough to distinguish from the red, yellow, red of the Spanish flag. We would like to remind Paul that octopus is a popular dish in that Mediterranean country.

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