St. Petersburg authorities hire oracle cat Achilles for the Champions League final 2022 – Sport

ST. PETERSBURG, July 12th. / TASS /. Achilles, the oracle cat of the St. Petersburg Hermitage Museum, has been invited again to do his fortune-telling, but this time for the 2022 UEFA Champions League final, Saint Petersburg Lieutenant Governor Boris Piotrovsky said on Monday.

In August 2019, the European Football Association announced the decision to choose St. Petersburg, Russia, as the venue for the 2021 Champions League final in the recently built new football stadium. However, due to the worldwide spread of the novel coronavirus, the date has been postponed to 2022 for security reasons.

The tomcat Achilles, a resident of the Russian Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, is famous for his predictions for the 2018 World Cup and the tomcat proved his skills again at the UEFA Euro Cup 2020, delivering the correct result to seven out of eight Play.

“Achilles has shown incredible results [during the 2020 UEFA Euro Cup]”, said Piotrovsky at a press conference.” I would say that he didn’t just guess the outcome of seven out of eight games, he predicted it correctly. “

“This is a remarkable result and we are all grateful for it,” the official said. “There is nothing left but to invite him to be an oracle of the [2022 UEFA] Champions League final. “

“It makes a lot of sense and we hope that now he has enough time to rest and prepare to recharge and continue his work,” added Piotrovsky.

Bowls with cat food are traditionally placed next to the flags of the national soccer teams in front of Achilles, and the cat makes its choice by eating from one of the two bowls in front of it and thus choosing the winner.

At this year’s UEFA Euro Cup 2020 in St. Petersburg, Achilles made correct predictions for the games between Italy and Turkey (3-0); Russia and Belgium (0-3); Russia and Finland (1-0); Sweden and Slovakia (1-0); Belgium and Finland (2-0); Sweden and Poland (3-2); Spain and Switzerland (3-1 on penalties).

However, the oracle hangover was wrong when he predicted Poland would win the game against Slovakia – the Polish team lost that game 2-1.

The Oracle Cat

Achilles, the white-haired and blue-eyed tomcat from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, began his career as a fortune teller during the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup. The museum staff selected the cat for its analytical skills and unusual behavior. In addition, Achilles is deaf from birth, so he does not get stressed at public events. In 2017, Achilles correctly predicted the results of three out of four Confederations Cup games played in St. Petersburg, including the first and last games.

In preparation for the World Cup, Achilles did some physical training – he worked out on special fitness machines to lose weight and attended public events to socialize and get used to the attention of the crowd.

Achilles also used his gift at the 2018 FIFA World Cup. He made predictions for eight World Cup games – the opening game in Moscow and the seven games that took place in St. Petersburg. In the first four games he predicted the winners flawlessly and correctly predicted Russia’s victory twice. After that, he was named the tournament’s best oracle, but then his predictions didn’t work out: the cat couldn’t guess the winning team three times, and his prediction for the game for third place was ambiguous.

2020 UEFA Euro Cup

The 2020 UEFA Euro Cup, which was postponed last year due to the global COVID-19 outbreak, took place from June 11 to July 11, 2021 in various cities across Europe. Italy won the championship on penalties against England on the night of July 11th at London’s Webley Stadium.

Russia’s second largest city, St. Petersburg, was chosen as the venue. It was one of the 12 cities originally proposed in Europe as the venue for European Championship games. St. Petersburg was granted the right to host three group matches and one of the quarter-finals of the 2020 UEFA Euro Cup.

The decision to hold the 2020 European Championship, which will celebrate its 60th anniversary in 2020, in different European countries instead of one or two host countries, was taken at the UEFA Executive Committee meeting on December 6, 2012 in Lausanne, Switzerland at the initiative of then UEFA President Michel Platini, who proposed the concept of the 2020 “EURO for Europe” tournament.

Following the withdrawal of Bilbao and Dublin from the list of host cities for the championship, the rescheduled UEFA Euro Cup 2020 was to be held in 11 cities, namely in London, England; Munich, Germany; Rome, Italy; Baku, Azerbaijan; St. Petersburg, Russia; Bucharest, Romania; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Budapest, Hungary; Glasgow, Scotland; Copenhagen, Denmark; and Seville, Spain.

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