Scientists retire Cup octopus

REMEMBER Jabulani? In 2010‚ when South Africa hosted the Soccer World Cup‚ the octopus at the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town was on target with his prediction that Spain would win.

The tournament also had Paul the octopus in Germany‚ letting his Landsmann know how the team would fare throughout the tournament‚ and most of the time he was right.

For Russia 2018‚ scientists have gone all out to predict the winner‚ earmarking a Brazilian victory over Germany in the final. But their methods might boggle the layman’s mind.

With Jabulani‚ it was simple and poetic. Jars holding the Dutch and Spanish flags were lowered into his tank just ahead of the final.

He curled his suckered tentacles around “la Rojigualda” and the rest is history.

For Achim Zeileis at the University of Innsbruck‚ it is a matter of combining the odds from 26 betting websites with complex statistical models.

Then a simulation of all possible game variants and results is created. That runs into the millions.

Because of all the rounds‚ statisticians had to “repeatedly play through the entire tournament millions of times – playing through every conceivable match pairing”.

After doing this‚ his team found Brazil had the highest chance of winning‚ at 16.6%‚ closely followed by defending champions Germany on 15.8%.

South Africans are not convinced that their brothers from the global south will take top spot.

Growth marketing company DCMN conducted a survey in this country and found that Germany was earmarked as the winner by 26% of people.

For Rose Hattingh‚ a South African now living abroad‚ a simple method not very different from Jabulani’s was her predictor as a teenager.

She dressed all her dolls and teddy bears in the colours of the teams in the final, then threw a tennis ball around the room. “We would know the winner from where the ball came to rest.”