Studying tactics and analyzing matches. Football watchers are breaking their heads to make predictions about the World Cup in Qatar. Statistics offices also estimate the winning chances of the top teams. But according to the Japanese otter Taiyo it can be much simpler.
A video shows how the otter is given the choice between three buckets. On the blue bucket is a Japanese flag, on the yellow bucket ‘tie’ and on the red bucket a German flag. His caretakers give him a small football, which he eventually drops into the blue bucket.
It seems too crazy for words, but it has already become a kind of World Cup tradition, because other animals have already taken a chance. The falcon Neyar predicted (correctly!) the opening game between Ecuador and host country Qatar. For this prediction, two drones were made to hoist the flags of the two countries with some meat on. The falcon was then released and then it was a matter of waiting which of the two flags it chose. In the end, the animal and its sixth sense were right: Qatar became the first host country ever to lose a World Cup opening match.
The otter and the falcon are not the first animals to have ‘psychic powers’. Who remembers Paul the octopus or Achille the cat? The German octopus went viral in 2010 after correctly predicting the winners of eight consecutive World Cup matches in South Africa. Paul then became a real world star. He was even proclaimed an honorary citizen by a village in northern Spain and was later given a memorial in the Sea Life Center of Oberhausen, where he stayed.
While we anxiously await the Red Devils’ performance, the owners of otter Taiyo and falcon Neyar hope that their creatures have as good ‘psychic’ powers as Paul the octopus.