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Spaniard wins $135,000 in free gas after predicting Spain's 5-1 loss to the Netherlands

Spaniard wins $135,000 in free gas after predicting Spain's 5-1 loss to the Netherlands

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Going into Friday's match between reigning World Cup champion Spain and the Netherlands, not even the most deranged fan expected such a resounding Dutch performance, with most supporters anticipating a hard-fought Spanish victory. Days later, while the entire population of Spain copes with that unfamiliar feeling of mortality and Iker Casillas considers a new line of work, a surprising fact has surfaced: it seems the only fan who predicted a 5-1 scoreline was a Spaniard who won a $135,000 prize in the process.

Jacobo Ríos-Capapé, a 56-year old architect and ex-referee from Valencia, took part in a contest organized by Spanish fuel company, Cespa. Somehow divining the 5-1 scoreline weeks in advance, Ríos-Capapé placed his entry for the match alongside 70,000 other participants and 120,000 entries with the hopes of winning one of Cespa's grand prizes, $135,000 worth of free gasoline.

As it turns out, Ríos-Capapé was the only participant in the entire country to guess such a brutal scoreline. The entire country. So convinced was Spain of their dominance that literally only one person predicted a 5-1 scoreline when they could have entered multiple times with different scorelines.

[Photos: World Cup fans watching from around the world]

His rationale? He's a wizard.

Actually, that's not true. While it's fun to imagine Ríos-Capapé staring into tea leaves, his explanation is pretty straight forward, at least according to Marca:

"Hoping that Spain would win, of course, I thought that if Holland were to beat us, it would be big, so I came up with the 5-1 scoreline, without being very convinced by it. Actually after, I thought it was outrageous and wouldn't happen."

With $135,000 worth of free gasoline, Ríos-Capapé must be satisfied, right? Actually, no. According to Marca, Ríos-Capapé has plans to enter Cespa's contest for the second match, for the lesser prize of about $68,000 worth of free gas.

"It will be my personal revenge for the defeat to Holland. Tomorrow I'm going to fill up and I'll play that Spain beats Chile 5-1."

Leave some free gas for the rest of us, Jacobo.

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