deliriouslove1970. The life & times of Gary and Denise Flanders. (Free and worth every penny. If you would like to compliment the editor, send to garytheflan@deliriouslove1970.com. If you would like to complain, call your mother.)

Today at 1:00 pm, Mountain Time the final match of the 2026 World Cup begins.

“It makes it back-to-back finals for the best player in the sport, Lionel Messi, who won his first in Qatar in 2022, and a first appearance for Spain’s prodigy Lamine Yamal.”

The world’s most popular sport has been closely watched and analyzed over and over. Predictions have been made and shattered. To quote the eminent football pundit, Roy Kent: “We don’t know what is going to happen down on the pitch”

But, has there ever been a successful prognosticator of World Cup matches?

In her seminal work, Sy Montgomery tells of an Octopus who was asked to predict the outcome of matches.

“Paul, the octopus from Sea Life Oberhausen, in Germany, predicted the outcomes of the 2010 FIFA World Cup soccer matches seven times in a row. Before a match, Paul would be offered two boxes, each containing a mussel. Each was adorned with a different flag representing the two nations whose teams would face one another in the upcoming game. How did Paul make his selection? And how did he do so with such success? We considered the possibilities—including that the octopus was drawn to the aesthetic qualities of one flag over the other, and that he really did know which team would win.’”

It has been fun watching the flags being paraded around during the 2026 World Cup. It has provided the opportunity to say, ‘Oh, I like that flag, what country is that?’

Now all we need to do is find an Octopus to tell us Spain or Argentina.

Addendum: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/12/us/world-cup-giant-flags.html