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Merkel tips 2-1 win for Germany over Spain

She may not have the psychic powers of Paul the octopus, who has a 100 percent record of correctly predicting Germany’s World Cup games, but Chancellor Angela Merkel still likes to tip her team to victory.

And the chancellor, a devoted follower of the national team, said Wednesday she believed the Mannschaft would beat Spain 2-1 in the World Cup semi-finals to book a meeting with neighbours the Netherlands in the final on Sunday.

“It is going to be a very difficult game. And of course I am crossing all my fingers for the team and I hope, like many, many others, that it will all go all right. My tip is 2-1,” she told rolling news channel N24 in an interview.

Merkel was an enthusiastic supporter in the stands when Germany beat the highly-fancied Argentina side 4-0 in the quarter-finals but she has not been able to travel down for the match later Wednesday.

She took time off from grappling with the global economic crisis at a recent meeting of leaders of the world’s top economies to watch Germany’s last-16 drubbing of England with an unimpressed British Prime Minister David Cameron.

And she correctly tipped a German win over Australia in the group stages, although she got the score wrong, forecasting a 2-0 win when Joachim Loew’s team actually put four past the hapless Aussies.

Since Germany hosted the last World Cup in 2006, the chancellor has attended a host of matches, both domestic and international, and travelled to Vienna to watch the Euro 2008 final.

She will be hoping that result is not repeated, though, as Germany lost 1-0 to Spain.

And the omens are not good for the Germans as their lucky eight-legged talisman Paul shocked the country Tuesday by plumping for Spain live on national TV.