The Japanese celebrate an otter that predicted their national team's victory over Germany in the World Cup
A river otter in a Tokyo aquarium was hailed vigorously online by Japanese fans for predicting Japan's victory over four-time world champions Germany in their opening World Cup match yesterday in Qatar, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported.
Taiyo, the otter at Maxell Aqua Park Shinagawa in Tokyo, predicted Japan's victory by placing a miniature soccer ball inside a blue bucket bearing the Japanese flag, while the red bucket with the German flag and the yellow bucket with a word written on it were ignored on the eve of the match.
Japanese soccer fans were overjoyed at Japan's 2-1 victory and rushed to describe Taiyo, 8, online as "amazing" and "extremely competent".
Others hoped that he would predict the victory of the Samurai national team in the next group stage match against Costa Rica next Sunday.
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