The CEO Game

With the World Cup’s final upon us, here is something you have got to see: Paul, a special fortune telling and a rather amusing octopus who has already predicted with 100 per cent accuracy the previous Mondial game scores, has chosen Vicente del Bosque’s Spain to beat the Netherlands in the tournament final.

Working from his aquarium tank in Oberhausen, Germany – his astonishing record in predicting international soccer matches since 2008 stands at 10-1 – Paul has made his choice before an army of cameras from all over the world.

Paul the octopus

The cephalopod’s latest prediction had an immediate impact on Spain and the Netherlands, just two of the countries where it was broadcast live. But Spanish fans can’t decide whether Paul’s winning prophecy is a cause for celebration or vice versa. On the one hand, they can be optimistic – the octopus has been correct all along this World Cup after all. On the other hand, the Spanish team is afraid that the scenario from the Euro 2008 games will repeat: when the aquatic creature got all the games right except for the final game.

Paul’s bets are based on his food selection – when consulted, the octopus is faced with a choice to pick his mussel-based lunch from one of two jars with flags on them. Whichever box he picks, that country will prevail.

The octopus, who was born in the UK and was moved to the German aquarium, has become a national celebrity after correctly predicting Germany would beat Australia in their opening match, then lose to Serbia, then beat Ghana and then beat England. Until the semifinal, “Paul’s prediction was phenomenal,” many Germans agreed. Nevertheless, being as lucky as he is, or talented if you wish, Paul doesn’t get any slack: predicting Spain would surpass Germany to the final resulted in death threats from outraged German fans.

By the way, Paul tried to repair his relations with the Germans by choosing them as the winners over Uruguay in the match for third and fourth places, which Germany ended up winning. Whatever happens, Paul will be remembered as one of the symbols of the World Cup along with the noisy Vuvuzelas.

Lucky for him Germany won third place, otherwise Paul would have been sleeping with fishes, ending up as the first fried prophet, a la calamari style.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game

Can’t get enough of the Vuvuzela? now you can catch it at YouTube.

As if we haven’t been hearing the buzzing- whining – beehive like sound of the Vuvuzelas enough these last couple of weeks, YouTube has “generously” decided to indulge us with a special Vuvuzela button. Sometime last Wednesday, the world’s largest video portal activated a new button on some videos, that looks like a tiny soccer ball. The football shaped button resides in the lower right corner and does precisely what we all fear: clicking it will activate an endless, incredibly annoying sound that sounds vaguely like a swarm of insects- also known as the sound of the dreadful Vuvuzela.

If you haven’t been following the World Cup (seriously?) and you are not familiar with the Vuvuzela, it’s a plastic horn that is commonly played at football games in South Africa. There, they apparently love it and being the host county for this World Cup, fans following the games have been subjected to the Vuvuzela’s loud monotone for hours on end. The noise is so annoying that some television networks have taken measure to get rid of it by filter it out and guides have been popping out all over the web, showing how to block the Vuvuzelas from their TV sets and computers.

Special Vuvuzela Button

Be that as it may, the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) has decided not to ban the Vuvuzelas, due to its traditional significance. Well, guess you can’t argue with that. It seems the button doesn’t show up on all videos, but it is definitely appearing on some clips that are not exactly soccer or World Cup related. Here is one video of our very own CEO Game teaser who had the misfortune. Being the prankster that YouTube like to be, this isn’t surprising at all, yet we wish this little prank would be short lived… Finally, maybe next time when FIFA picks a location for the games, they will do some actual background research.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.