My take on Paul the Octopus

After my favourite team Germany, of which I was a supporter since 1986, lost - I really am stupefied about this Paul the Octopus.

Obviously, Paul is a FAR BETTER PREDICTOR/MARINE NOSTRADAMUS or whatever than I am, there is no doubt.

Anyway, logically speaking, I can only say these things -

Such predictions have a "mass psychology" effect on the whole team. These are the psychological pressure points :

1. An entire country's population watching the team.
   
2. 11 players , after winning 5 games, TOTALLY IS UNDER INDUCED FAILURE SUGGESTION - that they are going to lose.
   
3. FIFA World Cup is about STRATEGY more than dribbling the ball around. How can the Coach cool-headedly draw up a strategy beforehand.
4. Within the fastest game on earth , forgetting jal-alai, COACHES DYNAMICALLY CHANGE STRATEGIES. With the spectre of Paul hanging on their heads, obviously the Coach can't concentrate. And draw up better plans to counter the offense via more off-side traps, more man-to-man marking, whether to allocate 1 or 2 "sweepers" -the genius concept created by Franz Beckenbauer, whether to switch attack from the left flank to the right flank, whether to initiate attack from the classic midfield position, whether to give very long passes to - say 1 to 3 passes to give the ball to the right person to get a shot at the goal, whether when you are down by one goal - to focus how much on defence and so on and so forth.

I wouldn't eat this Paul the Octopus, the famed Cephalod, neither would I carry out ridiculous experiments on it, but let it loose back into the ocean where it belongs.