FIFA World Cup 2010: Paul the Octopus, the Nostradamus of German football- Sports and superstition don’t mix well
We are living in a day and age where scientific developments have surpassed the reasoning of a common man. The age of myths and spirits is gone, as people have started to question the old system of reading of omens and the myths surrounding the shooting stars. However, sometimes things still happen, that force a person to question the intellectual and rational reasoning of mankind. One of the recent incidents is the discovery of Paul the Octopus, an octopus placed in the Sea Life Aquarium in Oberhausen, Germany. Although, it is a common octopus but his abilities are not thought to be common at all.
Paul is supposed to have oracle abilities, as he is been known for the predictions in the German National team matches. The trick is to place two boxes of food in the aquarium, with flags of both the nations i.e. Germany and their opponents, and let the octopus choose between the both. His hunger drives him to the flag of the winning team, which is quite extra-ordinary in nature.
However, Paul is not right every single time. He has been improving himself as a predictor. In Euro 2008, he was successful only 80% of the time, as he wrongly predicted the winner of the final, against the Spanish. Maybe, Paul himself was driven by passion rather than intuition at that critical point. Nonetheless, this was totally absurd, but Oliver Walenciak, the manager of the aquarium, did not stop there. Paul was used to predict all the German matches in the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, and this time he got it right every single time. He was even able to precisely predict the winner in the Germany’s match against Serbia. He also predicted the victory for the Spanish in the Semi-Finals, which did anger the German fans, but this time the prediction was true, unlike the prediction in the final of the Euro 2008. Now, the status of the octopus as a celebrity has sky-rocketed, as he has been more precise than any football pundit in the World.
The events of such nature are not uncommon in the World of football, as people still believe in spiritual things and the supernatural. Last year, when Arsenal was in big trouble, after the season-long injury to Robin Van Persie, there was another discovery. It was found that there exists a Serbian spiritual healer, who uses the horse’s placenta to speed-up the recovery of torn muscles. The Serbian spiritual healer had her success in the past, which forced Van Persie to go for it. On top of it, Arsene Wenger was desperate enough at that stage to allow Persie to go through with such a disgusting, yet spiritual, treatment. Obviously, nothing worked, as Persie could not return before the end of the season.
Nevertheless, this was not the end of the whole episode of idiocy and foolishness. The angry Argentinean fans blamed Paul for their team’s loss against Germany. He got a lot of death threats, but his security was assured. The funny thing is that Paul did predict Argentina’s loss, but he never predicted that Argentina would be annihilated in that particular encounter. Maybe, the blame should be put on something else, as the octopus is only a predictor rather than a creator of such event.
If the whole episode of the octopus is looked at from a logical point of view, it must be clear that this whole thing has blown out of proportion. Although, the whole scenario does seem a bit absurd because animals are not supposed of have such intuition, they act according to their freewill. This whole spirituality thing is actually a psychological pressure, as some would be foolish enough to get engulfed by such fallacies. First thing, that should come to mind is, who came up with the idea of using an octopus in such a way, as it has been previously unheard of.
Maybe, Pele should think about rearing an octopus of his own, because of his humiliation as a predictor of football tournaments. One thing is for sure, whether angry Argentineans kill the octopus or not, he would surely be the target of the gamblers in the world. Such a thing should be noticed by the German officials and should be stopped, as it is taking all the fun out of football.
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