Even though Vinny is an Eclectus parrot and thus not indigenous to the Netherlands, Vinny was born and raised here. And thus Vinny has successfully been intoxicated with a subtle dose of '
Orange Fever'. This phenomenon comes up about every 2 years, mostly during global sports events.
This Winter the Netherlands did very well at the Winter Olympics with speed skating. Vinny often cheered along with the crowds on TV. And now the World Cup Soccer is upon us! Well, in the USA it's called soccer, anywhere else, in English, it's called Football. So that's what I'll call it from now on.
We, as Vinny's
parronts, are normally not big on football (or most other sports, to be honest). However, when huge tournaments like the Olympics, European Cup Football (Netherlands won in 1988) and now the World Cup Football, are there, we get a bit fanatic. And by 'we', I mean Dutch people and parrots in general.
See, the biggest sport in the Netherlands is football. Every two years there's either a European Cup or a World Cup. We won the European Cup in 1988 and the Dutch people went crazy. The football team was honored in Amsterdam during a boat tour through the canals.
Four years ago, in 2010, we reached the finals, but lost from Spain, as predicted by Paul the psychic octopus, seer of all seers.
Before Paul, but even more after his success, many animals have given it a shot at predicting outcomes of games. From hamsters, elephants, kangaroos, turtles, penguins, armadillo's ... even parrots have given it a try. A few examples
can be found here.
Some become famous, others don't. I would say this probably depends on their success in predicting the correct outcomes. Duh!
The point is that nobody knows what's really going to happen. Vinny has tried predicting a game once (see below), but that's it. Vinny just enjoys watching the games, above anything else. He jut sits there, cheers a lot, goes 'oooh' and 'aaah' when the crowds on TV make those sounds, and that's pretty much it.
But don't be mistaken, he's very fanatic! Recently he posted a few pictures on his own Facebook wall that lead me to believe that Vinny is secretly a fanboy that knows no limits! All in good sports of course. A bit of friendly banter here and there, but other than that always with a positive note.
I just found it so remarkable that Vinny posted these pictures, that I had to show them here on his blog as well. So here goes ...
Right before the game against Mexico, he posted this. This is his first prediction ever. He predicted the win correctly, but was off on the score. Either way, let's not encourage him to strive for world fame when it comes to being a psychic parrot.
Then after the game, he posted this:
With vinny in the picture is
Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, the player who scored the winning goal by means of penalty. What many people don't know is that Mr. Huntelaar had failed to score from penalties the last 3 times (in other matches). So Vinny probably believed he not only needed some encouragement, but also directions. Either way, it worked, so that's what counts in the end.
And then today, in the hours counting down to the quarter final match between the Netherlands and Costa Rica, he posted the following picture:
His artwork seems to be getting a little bit better, but in all honesty, isn't he getting a little bit overconfident here? He even colored the world cup orange already. Don't worry, I'll have a heart to heart with him in a bit.
Anyway, I just wanted to share this with you and hopefully you won't think of Vinny being a cocky bird. Although, I have to say, I do hope he's going to be correct!
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