New Delhi: Two decades ago, it was Paul the Octopus, who predicted the winner of football matches in the FIFA World Cup; now it is a cat. Yes, Billy, a British shorthair from Ireland, has been spot on with his predictions in this edition’s World Cup matches, his latest being Argentina’s win against Austria.
Two-year-old Billy Heartnose is now known to be a psychic cat.
Billy’s choice was Japan, Germany and Colombia, and all of these teams emerged as the winners in the FIFA World Cup in the US. Linka Lin and Mark Kelly from Newry, County Down, adopted Billy when he was three months old.
Spot-on predictions
The cute cat, with a unique mark on his nose, has been on his toes since the tournament. His parents present him with country flags. And now it is on him—which one to choose.
For the match between England and Ghana, Billy sat crouching on his feet, wearing a yellow printer shirt. A question was thrown at him: “Between England and Ghana, which team is going to win?”
There is a few-second pause. Billy gently raises his paw and picks the winner. It is that simple for Billy to get the winner.
That post has more than 85,000 views, and around 3,777 likes on Instagram. He has more than 9,800 followers on Instagram and identifies himself as “Amateur World Cup Predictor”.
While talking to the NewYork Post, Linka said that Billy is not bothered by the fact that he is an “online” influencer.
“To us, he is still our cat, still Billy”, she said.
With every win, Billy gets treats, and lately he has been getting a lot of them.
“Of course, it’s going to be harder and harder to get it right with time, and the level of expectation will be heavier, but I’m pretty confident he can handle that.
Billy has received very encouraging feedback online. Football fans, even when Billy has picked the wrong country, have been kind and sweet to him.
The couple has received messages, ‘I forgive you, you’re really cute’.
However, Linka and Kelly both said that sometimes there have been “borderline threatening” comments like ‘You better [not] be right’.
“But overwhelmingly it’s been very good”, the couple said.
Also read: Luka Modric scripts history in FIFA World Cup, joins Messi, Ronaldo in 200-cap club
How did it start
Billy’s psychic journey started when Linka brought a lot of little flags from an event. And he started playing with him with the flags.
“It just so happened the World Cup had started, so we thought, ‘Why not?’”, said Linka. “We didn’t expect some of the videos to get picked up by people online.”
Linka thinks Billy is very quick with his prediction; however, the two-year-old has the attention of a human kid. He narrated an incident when Billy got distracted by a fly, and the entire ‘prediction process’ was interrupted.
Maybe the football flag game was new for Billy, but his parents played with him ‘this and that’ quiz—asking if he prefers Pepsi or Coke, or rice or noodles.
She said, “We know Billy is very, very smart, and we were thinking, ‘How can we capture his personality and smartness?’
Billy is a communicative cat; he has been communicating about his needs quite vocally to Kelly and Linka. He would walk Linka to the door if he wants to go out for a walk or wants a treat.
Not only his “meows”, but Billy also communicates with different body language.
Kelly and Linka are happy that the family has been giving a boost of confidence to people.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)