(VNF) - Football fans of World Cup all over the world are getting psyched as all eyes are set on the host Russia. However, football players are not the only ones taking the spotlight.

Achilles the Cat. (Photo Courtesy: Peter Kovalev/Getty Images)

Continuing in the tradition of animal predictions that began with the late legendary Paul, the octopus in 2010, the 2018 Football World Cup will feature Achilles, the snow white cat from Russia.

As he is catching more and more attention from the press and football's fans, let's get to know more about this special feline friend.

A full-time art galleries guard

Being selected to be the fortune teller of World Cup 2018, there must be something special about Achilles. Assuredly, this is not a circus trick: Achilles definitely lives up to his name. He is said to have accurately predicted the winners during the 2017 Confederations Cup, another major football tournament held every four years and seen as a test event for the larger World Cup.

Achilles was destined to go on a diet and lose the excess weight gained in winter. (Source: Sputnik)

An "official oracle" has spoken — or eaten, technically — and predicted victory for Russia.

That was the news from St. Petersburg Wednesday after Achilles the cat picked Russia to win the opening match of the World Cup on Thursday in a game against Saudi Arabia.

He picked between two bowls of cat food, and chose the one marked with the three colors of the Russian flag — "however not without hesitation," according to Russia's state-owned Tass news agency (and he got it correct, Bingo!!!).

Achilles is an inhabitant in St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum — one of about 50 to 70 cats who work full-time to protect the masterpieces that it houses (literally say, the team is tasked with catching rats in the museum's basement).

Before World Cup, Achilles had been hard at work as of late to prepare for the tournament.

He had undergone "training to shed weight and get more fit" over the past year (working out physically and mentally, and somewhat reluctantly). He is also taking part in charity events, visiting children and the elderly in hospices, using his celebrity for good.

This year, on March 1, the International Day of Cats, there was a significant event in the life of Achille as he moved from the Hermitage Museum to the Café "Republic of Cats." There he was destined to go on a diet and lose the excess weight gained in winter.

Unlike the Achilles in Greek mythology

Achilles was actually the name of a hero in Greek mythology, one of the main characters that participated in the Trojan War. He was also the protagonist of Homer’s epic, the Iliad.

Achilles was the son of Peleus, king of the Myrmidons, and Thetis, a nymph.

When Achilles was born, his mother wanted to make him immortal and thus, dipped him in the river Styx. However, she did not realise that his heel, by which she held him, was not touched by the waters, and so that was the only part of his body that remained mortal.

That's how 'Achilles' heel' has become a metaphor to talk about a 'vulnerable, weak point'.

Deafness is not 'Achilles' heel', in this case. (Source: capetownetc)

But for Achilles the Cat's case, it sounds like he is turning his weakness (deafness) into a strength.

Chosen for his affinity to humans, Achilles was born deaf but that seems to have only sharpened his precognitive abilities.

"We went for Achilles because he is beautiful, first of all, but also because – like all white cats with blue eyes. He is deaf, so he has a great deal of intuition, he sees with his heart,” say his caretaker, Anna Kasatkina.

(In cats, inherited congenital deafness is seen almost exclusively in white coated inpiduals. The deafness is caused by degeneration of the auditory apparatus of the inner ear and may affect one ear or both ears. Nonetheless, not all white cats or white cats with blue eyes are necessarily deaf. The variable penetrance of deafness and eye colour may be caused by interplay with other genes and/or environmental factors.)

Not the only one psychic animal

In Hong Kong, Datou, an eleven-year-old West Highland Maltese dog is doing the same job as Achilles.

Earlier, many animals were famous for their ability to forecast. Do you remember Paul from South Africa’s 2010 World Cup? He accurately predicted the outcomes of each game Germany participated in. He would crawl atop boxes containing food and each box in the tank had the national flags of the teams playing against one another printed on them.

Many animal oracles have made a bid to play seer of various World Cup tournaments through the years, including Swiss guinea pig Madame Shiva, British piranha Pele, Shaheen the camel (Dubai), Baby pandas (China), Mystic Marcus the pig (UK) and Citta the elephant (Poland)./.

( Phi Yen (compile) )