World Cup games could pander to predictions

Chinese national treasure Panda will be this year's Paul the Octopus in predicting the outcome of matches at the soccer World Cup in Brazil, China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda has announced.

The center has designed three ways for the panda to predict the results.

First, selecting the food in three bamboo baskets that represent the "win," "lose" and "tie" respectively in group phase; second, climbing onto the trees that hang different countries' national flags in the knockout phase; third, letting two pandas race to decide the winner by wearing a vest marked with either football team's colors.

Established in 1980, the center is the world's largest scale first-class panda research and natural protection and education base.

Paul the Octopus was titled the "God of Octopuses" after correctly predicting the results of all seven matches for the German Team at the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Paul predicted the result by selecting a glass jar tagged with national flag and then taking out the shell from the jar.