Euro climax looms
When columnist Diego Maradona picked England over Italy, he merely exhibited human frailties in predicting sporting outcomes. No prescience was needed to show England would lose on penalties to virtually anyone as they have been victorious just once in seven tiebreakers.
The late Paul the octopus, with an 86 per cent success rate overall (100 per cent in World Cup 2010), wouldn’t have been needed to pick Euro 2012’s last four lineup, with resplendent Spain taking on Portugal, for whom Cristiano Ronaldo is doing the star turn, and Germany meeting old rival Italy — brilliant even if they haven’t found the net as often as they should have.
A few wannabe Pauls also fell by the wayside as Euro 2012 progressed. Chennai fish Chanakya, picking up a reputation with seven correct predictions in a row, stumbled choosing France over Spain. The formbook should have indicated Spanish dominance ever since Euro 2008. But these predictions from the marine and animal world are fun even if mathematicians laugh at the calculation of their accuracy rates based on chance when the odds are strictly even, much as when a coin is flipped for a call of heads or tails. Euro 2012’s climactic stages should be exciting as conspiracy theories on results that might hinge on the euro zone’s politico-economic troubles fade away, making room for clean sporting action by national teams battling for glory.
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