Last week, a statistical forecast built by economists and data analysts gave Mexico a lowly 0.8% chance of winning the World Cup.
Over the weekend, the Guadalajara Zoo countered with a far softer model: Elephants, gorillas, giraffes, capybaras and even a puma and a macaw making their own World Cup predictions in front of gaggles of curious visitors.
The animals picked winners — mostly for the four matches scheduled at Guadalajara Stadium — by choosing between food, shirts, boxes and soccer balls linked to the different teams.
The exercise was meant as a playful, not a serious forecast.
Ashanti, a 40-year-old elephant, leaned toward Mexico over South Africa in the tournament’s very first game, 1 p.m. Thursday at Azteca Stadium, which FIFA has branded Mexico City Stadium for the World Cup. El Tri, the Mexican national team, is unbeaten in eight games after slamming Serbia 5-1 in a final tuneup last week.
Meanwhile, a puma named Muluk sniffed objects and moved a ball to predict South Korea beating Czechia in this Thursday’s only other game: 8 p.m. in Zapopan, Jalisco, a municipality of about 1.4 million in the Guadalajara metropolitan area.
The same site will also host Mexico vs. South Korea on Thursday, June 18, but the capybaras charged with making a prediction just couldn’t do it. They ended up eating pretty equally from two bins crafted as soccer balls for each team.
The third of four matches at Guadalajara Stadium will be Colombia vs. the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday, June 23. Six giraffes, including 10-year-old Juana and 5-month-old Joel, tended to interact with objects representing the DRC — despite Colombia being No. 13 in the latest FIFA world rankings compared to No. 45 for the DRC.
Gorillas Chenchi and Faustina picked another upset in favoring Uruguay over Spain on Friday, June 26. Uruguay is a respectable No. 16 in the world, but Spain is No. 2 and favored by many to lift the 2026 trophy.
Danae Vazquez, head of communications at Guadalajara Zoo, said the animals freely chose the winners, including a macaw who flew down and took a peanut from the “Mexico” side of a mini soccer field.
“It was very exciting,” she said. “We had a lot of fun.”
The predictions are the latest in a string of high-profile animal stories at the Guadalajara Zoo.
In April, the zoo was in the news for a tiny, baby monkey named Yuji who was clinging to a stuffed dog for comfort after being abandoned by his mother. And last year, it celebrated its first hatching of the world’s tiniest turtle.
With reports from Semana, El Economista, AFP and Reuters
