2 giant pandas go viral for predicting World Cup 2022 matches in Qatar

November 28, 2022

Two giant pandas in Qatar have gone viral for predicting the winners of matches at the FIFA World Cup 2022.

Thuraya and Suhail arrived in Doha, Qatar, after leaving the China Conservation and Research Centre for Giant Pandas’ Ya’an base in Sichuan province earlier this month, South China Morning Post reported.

Prior to the opening match between hosts Qatar and Ecuador, a short video shows one of the animals at the Panda House in Al Khor Park sniffing each country’s flag on a glass wall before placing their paws on one of them. The pandas accurately predicted Ecuador’s win.

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Thuraya and Suhail were tasked again with predicting the match between Germany and Japan two days later. One of the pandas did not hesitate to put its paws on the Japanese national flag. Japan defeated Germany 2-1.

The pandas’ accuracy ended when they predicted that Uruguay would win against South Korea last Thursday. The game ended in a tie.

This isn’t the first time animals have been used to predict World Cup matches.

An 8-year-old river otter named Taiyo was instructed to predict a winner in the match between Japan and Germany last week. Another otter was asked to do the same in 2014.

Featured Image via Ontoy Lino (left, right)

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