ST. PETERSBURG, February 25. /TASS/. Achilles the cat, a resident of Russia’s State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, famous for his predictions for 2018 FIFA World Cup games, will put his skills to the test once again during the upcoming UEFA Euro 2020, the cat’s owner Anna Kondratyeva informed TASS on Tuesday.

"Achilles will be an oracle at the Euro 2020," she said. The cat’s owner added that currently, the cat is involved in social work, visiting orphanages, hospices and retirement homes.

"Achilles is such a special cat that he is even allowed in intensive care units. Not every cat can be a therapy cat. He is very easy-going, very calm; he is comfortable going from one place to another. He is in his prime, undergoing an annual check-up at the vet," Kondratyeva added.

The oracle cat

Achilles, the white-furred and blue-eyed cat from St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum, started his career as a fortune teller during the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup. The employees of the museum selected the cat for his analytical abilities and unusual behavior. Besides, Achilles is deaf from birth, so he does not get stressed out at public events. In 2017, Achilles correctly predicted the results of three out of four Confederations Cup matches that took place in St. Petersburg, including the first and final games.

In preparation for the World Cup, Achilles underwent physical training - he worked out on special fitness machines to lose weight and participated in public events to socialize and get used to the attention from the crowd.

Achilles applied his gift during the 2018 FIFA World Cup as well. He made predictions for eight World Cup matches - the opening game in Moscow and the seven games that took place in St. Petersburg. In the first four games, he flawlessly predicted the winners, and correctly predicted Russia’s victory twice. After that, he was named the best oracle of the tournament, but then his predictions ceased to come true: the cat failed to guess the winning team three times, and his prediction for the match for third place was ambiguous.

The matches of the 2020 Euro Cup will be held from June 12 to July 12, 2020 at stadiums in 12 different cities across Europe, namely in London (England), Munich (Germany), Rome (Italy), Baku (Azerbaijan), Saint Petersburg (Russia), Bucharest (Romania), Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Dublin (Ireland), Bilbao (Spain), Budapest (Hungary), Glasgow (Scotland) and Copenhagen (Denmark).