A goat hailed as ‘The Oracle of Samara’ predicted Australia’s World Cup match against Denmark would end in a draw.
The Oracle, or Zabiyaka to her friends, ran between two bowls of food in the city’s zoo to demonstrate her prediction.
Oracle goat predicts outcome for Denmark-Australia #WorldCup match pic.twitter.com/dMvXDjBLYo
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) June 20, 2018
After initially ignoring the food – give her a break, it’s a lot of pressure – she went to both bowls twice which, according to the zoo’s Head of Science and Education Aliona Kireeva, means the game would end in a tie.
“Today Zabiyaka predicted a draw for the Denmark-Australia match. Why she made that choice? No one knows, it’s her intuition, her guess,” said Kireeva.
I don’t know, I feel like those giant bowls of food might trump intuition.
Zabiyaka the Oracle Goat indicating a goal for Australia, or just eating her lunch.
While Kireeva suggested the score would be 2-2 rather than the eventual outcome of 1-1, that’s still pretty decent.
According to her previous predictions, Zabiyaka holds a 66 percent success rate.
“We are happy with what she has predicted so far,” added Kireeva.
Earlier this week, Timon the psychic meerkat predicted Denmark would be victorious when he tucked into a bunch of worms that were in a bowl next to the Danish flag.
Suck it, Timon.
But he’s a meerkat, what would he know?
Timon and Zabikaya aren’t the only animals in Russia who are trying their hand, or paws and hooves, at predictions.
There’s Achilles, the deaf clairvoyant cat, who resides at St. Petersburg Hermitage Museum and has gained something of a cult following…
This stunning portrait of Achilles the deaf psychic cat is currently my favourite thing about the #WorldCup https://t.co/bF1vDxe09f pic.twitter.com/mXrpqYDXNf
— Knighty Knight ? (@jemimah_knight) June 13, 2018
…Sochi, an oracle otter who has correctly forecasted the first two victories in the tournament…
Sochi 'oracle' otter sees Russian loss to Uruguay, German comeback https://t.co/GxLXvsQkQe pic.twitter.com/XqU4e031Fo
— GMA News Online (@gmanewsonline) June 20, 2018
… a psychic lemur in Yekaterinburg…
… A raccoon in Irkutsk, two hippos in Kaliningrad, and a reindeer just outside of Moscow.
Actually, it might be easier to name all the animals that aren’t being food-bribed into these weird World Cup antics.
Anyway, whether you believe it or not, we really do need all the good vibes and goat juju we can get to have a chance at winning this World Cup.