In 2010, the most accurate World Cup forecaster on the planet was an octopus named Paul. He lived at the Sea Life aquarium in Oberhausen, Germany, and his method was rigorous: before each match, his keepers lowered two boxes of mussels into his tank, one marked with each team’s flag, and whichever box he opened first was his pick. He went eight for eight that summer, calling all seven of Germany’s matches correctly, including their losses, and then picking Spain over the Netherlands in the final.
Eight correct picks in a row is a 1 in 256 shot if you assume he was guessing, and the world reacted about how you’d expect. Eliminated fans sent death threats, with one Argentine newspaper going as far as printing a recipe. After Paul picked Spain over Germany in the semifinal, the Spanish prime minister offered to send a security team to protect him from his own countrymen. Offers to buy him poured in, including 100,000 euros from a Russian bookmaker and a bid from the Madrid Zoo to beat any offer on the table. His aquarium declined them all. Paul retired undefeated and died of natural causes that October at the age of two and a half, which for an octopus is a full life and a remarkable career.
The animal kingdom has been trying to replicate the run ever since, and the long list of oracle parakeets, psychic pigs, and prophetic cats that followed have one thing in common, which is that none of them came close. Next week I’m writing about whether predictive models can do better with this World Cup. The bar was set sixteen years ago by an invertebrate, and it is high.
Enjoy the first weekend of group stage games.
