Four years ago the entire planet was transfixed by a psychic octopus called Paul who correctly guessed many a World Cup result.
Now, Enfield has its answer to the clairvoyant creature for this year’s World Cup finals in Brazil with Pele the piranha.
The mystic fish has so far guessed four out of the six results correctly with the England defeat to Italy and Netherlands’ thrashing of Spain the only blots on his forecasting record.
The three year old caribe piranha (Pygocentrus cariba), which lives at Wildwoods Water Gardens in Theobalds Park Road, in Crews Hill, is named after an extinct tribe in the Orinoco and is also known as Capaburro, which means Donkey castrator.
Manager at the centre, David Monk told the Enfield Independent about how workers at the garden centre came up with the idea.
He said: “We have got a lot of football supporters here and we were having a bit of banter in the tropical house and someone said I bet a fish could predict the outcomes better than you can so we played around with the idea of offering up food.
“The idea is that we hang the flags of the two countries on the crossbar and a green flag for a draw and we attach food to each one and see which piece of food he goes for.”
So far, Pele’s South American tendencies have not let him down, correctly predicting Brazil and Argentina to victory.
The piranha turned medium has also warmed to his English surroundings, correctly guessing both England’s warm up matches.
Mr Monk added: “He’s got four out of six which is pretty good; it was after getting both warm up games we believe that maybe he did possess some psychic powers.”
Pele’s tank has also been transformed into a football pitch with a goal and England supporters in the background.
Today, Pele has gone for a draw in the Germany versus Portugal which kicks off at 5pm.
Not only is the piranha under the pressure of forecasting the results, he is in deep battle with other supernatural animals up and down the country to be the top of the food chain in the prediction world.
The Enfield Independent will be keeping up to date with Pele’s predictions throughout the tournament.
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