The Simpsons ‘prediction’ for the World Cup final remains very much on course

Claiming that “The Simpsons predicted this” is one of the internet’s favourite things at the moment

Most famously, the show 'predicted' that Donald Trump would become president of the United States of America. But then there was the closure of Toys R Us. And the Winter Olympics. And even celebrity deaths. It’s almost as if, that if a show runs as long as The Simpsons has, there will be so much content there that you can tenuously point to a lot of stuff and twist it to claim Matt Groening is some time-travelling Nostradamus or something. If you make 639 episodes of anything, you are bound to have a few spooky coincidences. It’s an ‘infinite monkeys at infinite typewriters situation’. But the latest prediction – well, that goes much further. People think it has predicted something that hasn’t even happened yet. Sigh. Yeah. We know. Apparently, The Simpsons predicted what will be the eventual World Cup final: Mexico vs Portugal. The scene is from the 1997 episode ‘The Cartridge Family’, the one where Homer buys a gun. That one famously opens with the writer’s very American take on football, and the notorious scene where all the players just stand still and pass the ball between each other. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJu2qSJ9zno Clip via Hi Neighbor! The residents of Springfield are told to “Open wide for some soccer” and go see the match to decide “Which nation is the greatest on earth: Mexico or Portugal”. And yes, the way the knockouts line up, Portugal and Mexico could still face off in the final. It was first spotted by Portuguese newspaper Eco, who got quite excited by it. And then everyone else started to run with it. https://twitter.com/BBCSport/status/1011743407977398275 https://twitter.com/saturnnes/status/1010008987218014208 https://twitter.com/ItzRegBro/status/1011693513912676352 https://twitter.com/xMmePresidentx/status/1011754071374561280 It makes sense though – Cristano Ronaldo only missed that penalty against Iran to fulfil the prophecy. https://twitter.com/KityanChan/status/1011847538918318080 Look, at this point, we can use The Simpsons to predict literally anything. For instance, in ‘Treehouse of Horror III’, the sentient Krusty doll says the words “Coming home”. That’s the show predicting England winning the World Cup, right?