The President had correctly predicted the result of Sunday’s round of 16, with Giroud, Mbappé and Lewandowski as scorers. Miracle ? Genius ? Conspiracy? At “Libé”, several Nostradamus had bet more or less the same thing.
Somewhere in the American sky, Emmanuel Macron answered Friday the Parisian on energy anxieties or the overhaul of pensions. In conclusion, the tricolor leader indulged in the game of predictions. The match of the Blues against Poland in the round of 16 of the World Cup? “I think we win 3-1, he advanced quietly. Lewandowski will put one, like Mbappé or perhaps Giroud, who wants to go down in history. We imagine it, between two announcements “Gentlemen, we are going through a zone of turbulence”, drawing tarot cards from the tablet in the specially equipped room aboard Gallic Air Force One. “And joker for the third goal of the French.”
A prediction that did not turn out to be Perlimpinpin’s powder: on Sunday, Giroud opened the scoring well (beating the French record for goals in the France team), before being twice followed by Mbappé then, on the Polish side, by Lewandowski on penalty at the last second. Miracle ? Genius ?? Conspiracy ??? Social networks obviously did not fail to highlight this funny coincidence – not without derision.
It’s simple: to Liberated, a small handful of us are making predictions about the controversial Qatar World Cup – like good old drug addicts who haven’t pushed the boycott so far. Our dealer: MonPetitProno, a platform for budding bettors. And among our 40 players, 9 had the correct score. That’s almost a quarter of the workforce… Enough to put the originality of the presidential prediction into perspective. On MonPetitProno, which still claims 1.7 million bettors, “the score 3-1 was given by 21% of the players. This is the second most given prediction, after 2-0”, tells us the platform.
Such unanimity (on the right score) never happens, in a World Cup not spared by surprises such as Saudi Arabia winning against Argentina and Germany ejected prematurely. But then ? Perhaps it was just the most likely prediction, right-centrism makes a prognosis, a sort of footballing “at the same time”: it is widely accepted that France is stronger than Poland; Giroud wants to beat Thierry Henry’s record and has the freedom to (Benzema is no longer there); Mbappé marches on his opponents and wants to put his seal on the history of the World Cup à la Pelé; Lewandowski is the only Polish offensive weapon, spearheading the flagships Bayern Munich and other FC Barcelona for years.
In any case, we are a lot of Paul the octopus. And for future matches? We can also go there with our forecasts which will impress the gallery: Portugal and Spain will qualify for the quarter-finals. Lionel Messi will score against the Netherlands. South Korea will not win the World Cup. But for France-England on Saturday, the tricolor leader of the Nostradamus?
Updated November 5 at 2:15 p.m. with the precision of MonPetitProno