Friday 26 / July / 2024
Muscat: At the time when football fans are in a race to predict the winners of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 matches, an Omani has become an instant celebrity in the Middle East for his ‘precise’ predictions.
Popularly known as "Mjumba", Mohammed al Hajri has been spot on in predicting the team to lose. All he does is to wear the jersey of the team and his ‘magic’ works as that particular team has lost since his first prediction.
It may not have been the way he began as he put on the jersey of Qatar in their opening match on November 20 against Ecuador. The hosts lost and since then, Mjumba has been spot on with the team jersey he puts on going on to lose.
Buoyed by the instant celebrity status in the Middle East, Arab fans have now implored Mjumba to wear the France jersey ahead of tonight’s semi-final against Morocco.
Morocco made history when they became the first African and Arab nation to reach the World Cup semifinals.
On Tuesday, Mjumba wore a Croatia jersey, and the result was Argentina winning the match 3-0.
The social media phenomenon has now even been followed by global agencies and social media websites with him being shown in a video clip that is widely circulated. On Tuesday night the clip with him wearing the Croatian national team shirt at Lusail Stadium against Argentina was widely followed, according to the Russian news site "Russia Today".
According to Twitterati, the Mjumba jinx spell has been spot on so far.
An Emirati website also mentioned that whenever Mjumba wears a jersey that appears to back them, the result has been negative and in the case of the quarter-final between Portugal and Morocco, he had put on the Portugal jersey. The result: Morocco won.
Mjumba had earlier announced his support for the Netherlands team against Argentina, with an orange jersey and that result also had the Dutch go out.
In the quarter-final between Brazil and Croatia, he had the yellow and green jersey to support the five-time champions but Neymar and Co bowed out.
In the group stage, another example was when he wore the Argentina jersey against Saudi Arabia and the Gulf nation created one of the biggest upsets in the World Cup with a win over Argentina.
The examples of his jinx led to the right predictions for Spain, South Korea and the hosts Qatar.
“Mjumba” hashtag topped the list of leading hashtags on Twitter, following the historic victory of Morocco against Portugal in the quarter-finals.
With his jinx, Mjumba is now known as "the unluckiest person" in the World Cup. So popular has the Omani become that there are hordes of fans who wish to click a selfie with him and on Wednesday he was swamped by thousands asking him to wear a Les Bleus jersey against Morocco.
After all, the Middle East is hoping that it is time for an Arab and African nation to make it to the World Cup final.
