Some soccer fans have their game shirts, the president of Brazil watches entire games with her fingers crossed, but for others, underwater animals hold clues to the World Cup results in their tentacles.
In Brazil, “Big Head” the sea turtle predicts which team will win a specific match by swimming to one side of his tank or the other. He is 1 and 0 after correctly picking Brazil in its opening match over Croatia.
Chinese fans in Shanghai created a custom field in which 22 fish were separated into two teams. However, the fish were more interested in eating than scoring.
Octopi have a long history of predicting soccer winners. Paul the octopus became famous after correctly predicting eight 2010 World Cup matches in a row, outperforming many soccer analysts.
This year, fans in Japan have their own octopus fortuneteller, as well as a group of archerfish and a penguin dressed in a Japan national team uniform to predict results. Although the animals predicted a Japanese victory, the team ended up losing two-to-one to the Ivory Coast.
Warm up questions
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What is the World Cup?
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What are some superstitions that people have around sporting events?
Discussion questions
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Why do you think people feel the need for predictions?
