Me vs Paul the Octopus

So..it has come to this. The World Cup Final is just hours away and here I am pitting my wits against an octopus. You may recall my suggestion in an earlier post of the possibility of Dutch success, based on nothing more than the following of a colour pattern. It's hardly clairvoyance but no more ridiculous than the idea that a two year old octopus could successfully predict results of important football matches....Except that it seems his track record is quite good; in fact, it is extraordinary.

Paul, who lives in a tank at a Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen, Germany is presented with two boxes containing food, each marked with the flag of a national football team in an upcoming match. Apparently, he chose the box with the flag of the winning team in several of Germany's six Euro 2008 matches, and in all seven of their matches in the 2010 World Cup including Germany's third place playoff win over Uruguay yesterday. He even predicted correctly that Germany would lose to Serbia in the qualifying round.

With a 100% success rate in the World Cup to date, Paul has now dipped into the box with the Spanish flag on it. I should be concerned but I'm sticking with the Dutch. Whatever happens, the World Cup will have a new name on it. The Spanish have never progressed further than the quarter finals and the Dutch, although reaching the final in 1974 and 1978, lost each time.

Which brings me to the real reason for this post. In those 1978 finals, apart from Argentina who defeated Holland 3-1 in the final, only one team managed to beat the Dutch. The decisive goal by Scotland's Archie Gemmill in a memorable 3-2 victory was one of the classic all time World Cup goals. Sadly, it was not quite enough to keep Scotland in the tournament. Archie can, however, be proud that it is the only known piece of World Cup action to form the backdrop to a sex scene in a major hit movie. You can see the goal below. In yet another You Tube video, Archie can be seen talking about his embarrassment the first time he saw that scene in "Trainspotting"!