Atletico Madrid midfielder Koke has become the latest footballer to demonstrate his prediction skills in guessing the last-16 of the Champions League.
At the start of the year, Spanish legend Xavi turned some heads as he correctly guessed Qatar would win the 2019 Asian Cup by beating Japan in the final.
Can Koke see the future? Four key things to know…
- Every season people give their predictions for certain competitions, with the Champions League a big favourite.
- With the Champions League reaching the last-16, Atletico Madrid Koke had his go at predicting the quarter-final line up.
- The Spaniard has so far correctly called the four Champions League last-16 ties so far, including Ajax beating Real Madrid.
- For the remaining four games, Koke has predicted qualification for Liverpool, Barcelona, Atletico and Schalke – seeing Manchester City and Bayern Munich knocked out.
Xavi’s prophecy included some left-field choices including Qatar beating South Korea in the quarter-finals, one of the early favourites for the tournament. However, some of his calls were slightly off as certain teams went out earlier than expected.
You're a wizard, Xavi.
The former Barcelona midfielder correctly predicted that the 2019 Asian Cup final would be Japan vs. Qatar.
One more game to play. pic.twitter.com/zuEdb314Zu
— Squawka News (@SquawkaNews) January 29, 2019
But Koke’s psychic abilities have proven quite impressive in his predictions for the last-16 of the Champions League, made at the end of January.
The Atletico Madrid man called bitter rivals and defending champions Real Madrid to be knocked out at the first opportunity by heavy underdogs Ajax, a result confirmed by the Dutch side’s 4-1 win at the Bernabeu.
Koke also predicted qualification for Tottenham Hotspur, Porto and Manchester United – all three of whom also would have been considered slight underdogs at some point, particularly with the latter taking a 2-0 home defeat into their second leg against Paris Saint-Germain.
With four out of four games correctly predicted so far, attention now turns to next week’s action, and it could spell bad news for Manchester City in their hopes for the quadruple.
La quiniela de @Koke6 sobre los octavos de #ChampionsMLC.
Reportajes #Vamos: vuelve la Champions (jueves 7 a las 22:00h en @vamos). pic.twitter.com/QqOZXMKghm
— La Casa del Fútbol en Movistar+ (@casadelfutbol) January 31, 2019
Koke has predicted Man City to be knocked out by German side Schalke, though Pep Guardiola’s men do take a 3-2 lead into their second-leg. But this could give them room to focus on the Premier League title, with Koke also predicting their rivals Liverpool to advance – cluttering their fixture list.
Koke’s own Atletico Madrid and Barcelona will also make the quarter-finals should the Spaniard prove prophetic.
Subscribe to Squawka’s Youtube channel here.
Football’s psychic past
Though Koke may be currently showing his psychic abilities in predicting the Champions League last-16, he is certainly not the first big name in football.
Arguably the biggest is Paul the Octopus who correctly called 11 out of 13 games involving Germany across Euro 2008 and the 2010 World Cup, as well as the 2010 World Cup final.
But since the octopus’ passing, various psychic animals have tried to take Paul’s crown including Otto the Octopus in Euro 2016 – who was used to predict England’s group stage, getting two of three games correct.
And, most recently in Russia for the 2018 World Cup, ‘Achilles the psychic cat‘ backed the host country to win their opening game of the tournament against Saudi Arabia.
The post Koke’s Champions League predictions success bodes well for Liverpool, but not Man City appeared first on Squawka News.
From Squawka News https://ift.tt/2EPM9Xk
No comments:
Post a Comment