Saturday, February 4th, 2012

It’s Spain and the Octopus vs Holland and the Parakeet in World Cup Final

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Although he’s entered the game a bit late, Mani, a parakeet from Singapore is going head to head with Paul the Octopus, who lives in Germany, when it comes to predicting the winner of the World Cup Final in Johannesburg on July 11.

The octopus has become a the most famous mollusc in the world over the last couple of weeks as he’s been predicting the outcome of Germany’s matches and has been right on the money all six times. Paul went to the well one last time on July 9 and predicted Germany to beat Uruguay in the third-place game and Spain to beat Holland to win their first ever World Cup.

However, it seems the parakeet doesn’t agree with the eight-armed sea-dweller and has shocked the world by choosing Holland to win their first ever World Cup instead. The Octopus chooses his winner by picking a mussel at dinner time that has a flag of a country on it while Mani flips over one of two cards that have the countries flags on them with his beak.

As you can see, it’s a Mexican standoff here and bettors all over the globe don’t know which way to turn. The 13-year-old parakeet isn’t as well known as Paul, but he’s also becoming a bit of a local celebrity after his owner M Muniyappan revealed the bird correctly chose the winners for the four World Cup quarterfinals games as well as Spain’s victory over Germany in the semi final.

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The 80-year-old Muniyappan claims to be a fortune teller and stated that Mani has been helping him forecast the future for the last five years outside the front of a restaurant located in the city’s Little India neighbourhood. However, he added this is the first time the bird has gotten involved in the wide world of sports.

Muniyappan, who was born in India, said most people come to him for advice on marriage dates and lottery numbers, but gamblers finally caught on and figured they’d give it a shot during the World Cup. He said he used to get about 10 customers a day, but that number has swelled to 30 now that Mani has made the headlines around the globe.

It seems the octopus and parakeet haven’t changed the bookmakers odds much with their psychic predictions as Ladbrokes still has Spain favoured at odds of 23/20, while Holland is listed at 53/20 and the odds of a draw at the end of 90 minutes are 11/5.

Of course, not everybody’s happy with Mani’s or Paul’s picks, but come Sunday night at least we’ll know who the real McCoy is.