Football fever is on and a “psychic” tuxedo cat has taken the internet by storm with its foretelling of 21 World Cup match results.
So far, Billy, a one-year-old British shorthair, has correctly predicted 21 out of 22 matches that did not end in a draw, including Argentina’s win over Austria on Tuesday (June 23) and Croatia’s win over Panama on Wednesday.
In videos posted to Instagram page Billy Heartnose, the cat’s owners hold out miniature flags of the two countries competing against each other in an upcoming World Cup match.
Billy then puts a paw over one of the two options, which in most cases turns out to be the winner of the match.
Unfortunately, Billy made his first wrong prediction for the match between South Korea and South Africa on Thursday.
South Africa won against South Korea with a score of 1-0, contrary to Billy’s prediction that the latter would win.
Despite the recent miss, his track record of predicting other match outcomes has impressed netizens, many of whom left comments praising him or expressing awe at his accuracy.
One comment read: “A true genius!”
Commenting on the video in which Billy predicted Croatia’s win, one netizen wrote: “This video popped up (on my feed) and 30 secs later Croatia scored a goal.”
Billy is not the only animal that has garnered attention for his World Cup match predictions.
In 2010, an octopus named Paul foretold the outcomes of Germany’s matches during the South African World Cup.
According to media reports, his launch to stardom was the moment he correctly predicted that Spain would defeat Germany in the semifinals and later become world champions, something few experts were willing to predict at the time.
Other “animal psychics” known for predicting results of World Cup matches include an otter named Taiyo, which predicted Japan’s win against Germany during the 2022 World Cup, and Shaheen the camel — who would walk up to one of the flags placed in front of him to predict match winners.
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bhavya.rawat@asiaone.com
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