Wannabe successors to Paul the Octopus give World Cup tips

Despite the fact that a ball is still to be kicked at the Women’s World Cup, it appears that it is already a three-Octopus race in the hunt for a tipping successor to the legendary Paul.

Paul the Octopus was right in all of his tips at last summer’s World Cup, which included correctly identifying that Spain would beat the Netherlands in the final.

With Paul having died in October, eight other octopi are now attempting to follow in his footsteps and have given their predictions on Germany’s first game of the tournament against Canada.

Germany have won the last two instalments of the tournament and will fancy their chances of completing a hat-trick this year as they are the host nation.

However, only Sea Life Berlin, Sea Life Koenigswinter and Sea Life Oberhausen have chosen Germany to triumph in their opening match, despite the hosts being 1/10 in the football odds to beat Canada.

Therefore, with these three extremely likely to get the tournament off to the perfect start in a tipping sense, it may pay to back one of the trio to end the competition as the top tipster.

Sea Life Oberhausen, who comes from the same centre as Paul, is the 9/2 favourite to be the top tipster, with Sea Life Koenigswinter available at 6/1 and Sea Life Berlin 13/2.

The octopus from the sea life centre of Konstanz has been given the name Paula in anticipation of a successful tipping run, but she was one of two to select an unlikely Canada victory at 20/1.

The other three molluscs’s ignored both boxes and aquarium officials have deemed this to mean that they were each predicting a draw.

England get their World Cup campaign underway against Mexico on Monday and are 1/2 to begin with a victory and a welcome three points.