Pro’s and Con’s of every non-guaranteed qualifier and predictions for both semifinals:
Want to make predictions for this year before the contest because semifinal 2 even after rehearsals is possibly the most unpredictable semifinal in recent history. Instead of just doing predictions I wanted to give more analysis in the entries whose status of being in the final or being a guaranteed NQ isn’t obvious and give cases and arguments as to why they could qualify and why they could not.
The entries I consider to be pretty much guaranteed qualifiers and won’t be speculating on are (in order of their running order in the semifinal): Moldova, Sweden, Croatia, Greece, Finland, Israel and Serbia from Semifinal 1. Romania, Denmark, Australia and Ukraine from Semifinal 2. Regarding guaranteed NQ’s I will only include Azerbaijan in this as after the rehearsals it is the only song I feel sure has no chance of being in the final. I can make an argument for all other entries but a dude with a pimp hat and some really crappy rope is not getting you into the Eurovision final.
Now i’ll talk about all the pro’s and con’s all the other entries have for qualifying discussed in their running order.
Starting with semifinal 1:
- Portugal:
o Pro’s:
§ Stands out being a calm song after a very chaotic beginning.
§ Portugal has consistently found a way to qualify in recent years even when they weren’t expected to as we saw with Deslocado last year.
§ Has jury appeal and could do well with the juries.
o Con’s:
§ Complete lack of televote appeal from a country that normally struggles with the televote.
§ Very basic staging and presentation that may make people consider it boring.
§ 0 allies. Portugal doesn’t have any reliable allies but even the countries who normally give them a little bit of love are either not participating this year (Spain) or are in Semifinal 2 (France, Luxembourg).
§ Maybe all the drama surrounding Festival de Cancao with most of the artists refusing to participate this year and criticism towards Portugal’s participation this year may lead to some people who regularly voted boycotting and it costing them.
- Georgia:
o Pro’s:
§ The song. It’s catchy and I can see it appealing to kids which could get it televotes. There’s a reason this was a predicted qualifier before the rehearsals and imo it was because of the song.
o Con’s:
§ The staging is very concerning as we have seen with the drastic drop in the odds. It just doesn’t look good from what we have seen and if you are rooting for Georgia you must either pray for them to be hiding something very exciting imo.
- Montenegro:
o Pro’s:
§ Serbia and Croatia are in the same semifinal which should get them around 40 points.
§ Very popular in Eurofans which if converted to votes could give Tamara the push to the final.
o Con’s:
§ Staging has some people concerned and Montenegro doesn’t have the biggest budget. It is a wait and see situation.
§ Montenegro has a very small budget and a history of not qualifying. Even if this has more of a chance than every entry they have sent since their last qualification it may not be enough.
- Estonia:
o Pro’s:
§ No other competition from their genre.
§ A lot of neighbours in the semifinal. They are happy to see Sweden, Finland and Lithuania and should get a good amount of televotes from those 3.
§ Estonia is on a qualification streak and has only NQ’ed once since 2018. They are one of the countries which you can argue knows how to find a way to get their songs in the final.
o Con’s:
§ The song is dated which has made it unpopular with eurofans.
§ Did poorly in juries in the national final and this could also be the case in the contest. Juries may tank it.
- Belgium:
o Pro’s:
§ Juries are in the semifinal and Belgium has done well with the juries most of the time in recent years. Juries could get this song in the final by themselves if they really like it.
§ Staging looks good imo visually from what we have seen. Belgium’s main flaw in the past is staging so if they got the staging right this year they may do well enough to qualify.
o Con’s:
§ Very static song for a song called Dancing on the Ice.
§ Has to compete with the fan favorite EDM song of this year in Sweden for votes in this semifinal.
§ Belgium historically struggles with the televote. They have also suffered in recent years of being everyone’s 5th favorite song syndrome where they are liked but not enough for anyone to vote for them and this song may suffer the same fate.
- Lithuania:
o Pro’s:
§ Has jury appeal thanks to Lion’s impressive vocals.
§ Lithuania is on a long qualifying streak like Estonia. Has only NQ’ed once since 2018 like Estonia. So they also have a reputation of getting their songs into the final.
§ Very passionate diaspora that votes for their entries. Lion won the televote by a significant margin with around 40,000 votes which shows that Lithuanian’s like the entry so the diaspora should be active.
o Con’s:
§ Divisive song that may push people away and could also be too weird for jurors.
§ Lithuania has a strong diaspora but most of their strongest allies either are not participating this year (Ireland) or in the other semifinal (UK, Latvia, Ukraine). Estonia is in semi 1 but they prefer to vote for Finland and Sweden over Lithuania.
- San Marino:
o Pro’s:
§ Staging stands out a lot with all the pyro.
§ Senhit is giving it her all. She is giving a ton of energy and spent the yearly gdp of San Marino in pyro.
o Con’s:
§ The song is very dated and not the strongest. It will probably struggle with the juries.
§ Boy George. He brings a ton of controversy and based on the rehearsal he is giving 0 energy. This may not be the case in the semifinal but if he performs like in the rehearsal’s the song has 0 chance.
§ It’s San Marino. Being such a small country means they struggle to get televotes as proven with Senhit’s last entry in 2021 which disappointed in the televote.
- Poland:
o Pro’s:
§ Staging is greatly improved and stands out a lot.
§ Alicja has an incredible voice which should give it jury appeal.
§ Polish diaspora even if they don’t love the song are big enough to get you votes. Only a universally despised entry like 2021 has gotten few votes from the polish diaspora and all the others have gotten atleast 30 points. Alijca isn’t universally hated in Poland and Xi Jinping isn’t currently scheduled to land in Serbia when Alijca is performing so it could get a good amount of votes from the diaspora.
o Con’s:
§ But it’s Poland and juries despise them. Poland doesn’t do well with juries and this song has more jury appeal than televote appeal.
§ Song is unpopular with eurofans and it is very experimental so that could cost them points from juries and televote.
§ Many of the countries boycotting the contest had significant Polish diaspora. Poland will miss the televote points they got from Iceland, Spain, Netherlands and Ireland. It’s biggest ally Ukraine is also not in this semifinal.
§ Poland was one of the countries that got the most backlash for not boycotting this year. It could have voters boycott this year and lose out on diaspora votes due to this.
Now Semifinal 2:
- Bulgaria:
o Pro’s:
§ Dara is a star in Bulgaria with a ton of fans.
§ Song did really well in tik-tok. This could potentially convert into votes.
§ The dream team is working on this entry and the songs they work mysteriously always do well in the televotes of countries where not a lot of people vote. Expect 12 televote points for Bulgaria from Azerbaijan, Czechia and Cyprus at least.
§ A ton of jury songs in this semifinal may allow it to do very well in the televote.
o Con’s:
§ This is a song I feel could get destroyed by the jury.
§ Running order: could be forgotten by the public since it is first. I also will add that with the exception of 2021 atleast 1 of the 2 semifinal openers has NQ’ed in the last decade.
§ This is me personally, but the staging worries me and didn’t stand out to me from what I have seen.
- Luxembourg:
o Pro’s:
§ Has appeal to kid’s.
§ It may just be 2/2 but Luxembourg has a perfect qualification record.
o Con’s:
§ The song is dull imo. It doesn’t stand out and being in between Romania and Czechia it could get overshadowed.
§ We still haven’t see it have a wow factor to make it stand out a ton for people.
§ It’s biggest voting ally since returning: Israel will be in a different semifinal for the first time and they will really miss them.
- Czechia:
o Pro’s:
§ Ton’s of jury appeal. People are expecting it to do so well in the jury for it to potentially qualify only from those points.
§ They seemingly did not mess up the staging this time. The staging looks great and should really make it stand out.
o Con’s:
§ Czechia has no friends and struggles in the televote most of the time. With a jury song it will struggle to get televote points.
§ The semifinal is stacked with jury songs and jury songs may not qualify due to getting way less points than expected from the jury due to this.
§ Australia is in this semifinal. After seeing the rehearsals to me Australia is the jury song of this year. It is not the most vocally impressive one, but nobody has the experience and confidence Delta Goodrem has and juries really value that. I can imagine a scenario where Delta gets Dani Im level of votes and wins the jury by a significant amount of votes and this could hurt the chances of jury songs like Czechia.
§ France another jury song performs right after Czechia. They may already have qualified but they may overshadow Czechia.
- Armenia:
o Pro’s:
§ Song stands out a lot when it is performing. Being a very fun chaotic song.
§ There are a ton of jury songs so it doesn’t have a lot of competition in televotes.
§ France is in this semifinal and that should be around 20 guaranteed points for Azerbaijan.
§ Armenia is on a qualifier streak and should have the same reputation as Portugal, Estonia and Lithuania of getting songs to the final consistently.
o Con’s:
§ Besides France they lost all their allies. Last year Armenia qualified for the final because they got 40 of their 51 points from 4 countries: Georgia, Israel, France and Greece. This year they only have France in their semifinal.
§ Not only did they lose Georgia, Israel and Greece but they have Azerbaijan which means they are guaranteed to miss out on 24 points.
§ Song doesn’t have a lot of jury appeal.
- Switzerland:
o Pro’s:
§ Song has potential to stand out and get votes from standing out with its message the way Deslocado did last year.
§ Song has jury appeal and Switzerland has recently done very well in the jury.
§ Switzerland is on a big qualifier streak and has gotten jury songs like Watergun to the final in a televote only scenario. They should have a reputation of getting songs into the final
o Con’s:
§ Song is not something you see in Eurovision which may push people away.
§ It is a jury song on a very jury stacked semifinal.
§ Very different staging which could work but could also be too erratic or divisive and cost it points.
§ Has struggled in the televote in the past and Switzerland doesn’t have any allies. It will need to earn every single televote.
§ It is a rock pop song which makes it the least jury friends jury song and one of the more televote friendly jury songs. This could work but it could also be disastrous.
- Cyprus:
o Pro’s:
§ The perfect song for eurofans. Girlbop with televote appeal.
§ Has done really well in spotify and youtube views. Like top 5 in the year level.
§ From the rehearsals the staging is stunning. So many visuals could blow away the public and get it votes from tele and jury.
§ Not a lot of televote friendly songs in this semifinal.
o Con’s:
§ Vocals: it is just the rehearsal and this could not be the case in the semifinal but there is a lot of concern in her vocals which if bad could tank her in the jury and cost her qualification.
§ No Dream Team which means they lose their televotes which are not Bulgaria’s this year. Bulgaria is also the main girlbop competition and they are going to be competing for that spot and for the votes of those fans and Bulgaria will have the lead due to the Dream Team votes.
§ No Greece in this semifinal. They have qualified without Greece but they would love to have Greece’s 24 points.
- Latvia:
o Pro’s:
§ Beatiful song, beautiful message and beautiful visuals
o Con’s:
§ No subtitles. So, most people will not understand the message.
§ Staging has seemingly remained exactly the same as the national final. This song has been borderline with that staging and changing nothing does not help this at all when everyone else is improving their staging.
§ Jury song in a jury stacked semifinal. Even worse is that it got 0 points in eurojury so it may be the least like jury song of them all.
§ 0 allies. No Lithuania, no Estonia. It is a song that doesn’t appeal to televote without any allies or diaspora that may vote for it in the semifinal.
§ Song may be seen as boring by casual viewers.
- Albania:
o Pro’s:
§ Beatiful song with a beautiful message which almost all the viewers will understand thanks to SUBTITLES.
§ Albanian diaspora is very passionate and vote for their entries. I expect this song to do well in the televote due to this.
o Con’s:
§ This is a song that should get a lot of love from the jury but Albania has consistently been underrated by the juries so I fear that this will be the one jury song to get robbed from jury points which could cost them the final.
§ We know the bare minimum of the staging. The writeup has me hopeful but the mom head concerns me. I fear that staging could lead to a shock NQ like what happened to Albania in 2022.
- Malta:
o Pro’s:
§ Very ambitious entry with a lot of jury appeal.
§ Malta has always done well with the juries. It will look to do well enough in the juries to qualify just from that score.
o Con’s:
§ Televote. In recent years nobody Malta has consistently underperformed in televotes and struggled to get points in recent years even with songs that had hopes of doing well in the televote like last year. In a jury stacked semifinal they need to get points from the televote too and they have historically struggled to do so.
§ Like Czechia having such a jury stacked semifinal could be very dangerous for them if they get less jury points than expected due to probably not getting a lot of televotes.
- Norway:
o Pro’s:
§ Closing the semifinal is a huge advantage.
§ Stands out and has televote appeal in a very jury friendly semifinal.
§ Jonas is a very good performer so he can also do well in the juries.
§ Norway has a 10 year qualifying streak where they qualify in the 7-10 range in half of those years. If there is a country that deserves a reputation of getting their songs to the final it is Norway. In the last decade they have always found a way.
o Con’s:
§ While Jonas is a good performer. Norway has not done well with the juries at all since 2017-18. They could get tanked by the juries again this year.
§ Staging has seemed to stay very similar to the national final which means it won’t be a big advantage and the songs appeal will come down to Jonas’s performance.
§ The song is middling in fanrankings and may not be appealing for viewers. It may be a song that may be in the middle for everyone and it may lose points because of this.
These are all the pro’s and con’s I have to present for every entry. Considering this I ask who do you have as your 10 qualifiers to know what everyone is thinking.
Personally my 10 qualifiers for each semifinal are:
(not ranked, mentioned in running order)
Semifinal 1:
Moldova, Sweden, Croatia, Greece, Finland, Montenegro, Israel, Lithuania, Poland, Serbia
Semifinal 2:
Bulgaria, Romania, Armenia, Switzerland, Cyprus, Denmark, Australia, Ukraine, Albania, Norway