Semi Final Two Prediction

Whilst semi final one was a mess of trying to seperate the entries in 9th-13th, today’s comes with a great deal more uncertainty at the top too and the general order of things. We’ll find out at a later date of course whether Finland, Greece and Israel did make up the top 3 as most predicted, with Moldova, Sweden and Croatia behind in the next trio but this one feels a more open ask all the way through.

I’ll start at what I think will be the top and work through:

Australia have looked like the probable jury winners to me for a lot of the season and that really looks to be the case now with Delta. My concerns with the televote side of the vote are not eased by their good audience poll but I do think they’ll find their way into triple figures here and they have a history of good semi final results. This will be more for debate in the final.

Denmark have been much maligned in some betting circles, including here at times and I’m sure many will be smelling blood with “just” a third place in the arena poll, circumstances that should be favourable to fan fav Soren. My main issue really has been at the very top end and in the semi final context, this still looks very competitive. I have them 2nd on the jury and 6th on the TV with a ton+ score which in my calculations should see them in the top 3.

Albania has been one of the real winners of the period since selection popping up in some, to me at least unexpected places. They’ve carried that on with a strong staging and live performance that should win over both the jury and televote. The diaspora is engaged, and there’s a bunch of countries in here who can get on board with the message - the same one that saw Baby Lasagna win the televote in 2024 and Portugal become a random hit in 2025. Another variant on the same theme, made way more overtly could work again.

Looking at the televote odds for the final Romania is rated a 17-1 shot with Ukraine and Bulgaria a little bit back so one may assume they are default televote favourites here to, or somewhere up there. This ticks all three boxes of Diaspora/regional support, casual appeal and fan appeal although didn’t do as well in the arena poll as would have been preferred.

DARA from Bulgaria has been a difficult one to place this year and the sneaky delegation were indeed holding plenty back on this one. I’ve had a big range on the televote appeal of this all year as they’ve shown flashes of a real breakout and are one contending to lead the stats tonight, particularly on TikTok. A narrow audience poll victory is encouraging for this too and like Romania there are reasons it can transfer that over to actual voting. Overall, I’ve backed them on some of the more outlandish markets (TV winner, Top 5 etc) but stayed clear elsewhere and I think they’ll get a strong but ultimately middling score in the semi final here with a not amazing jury score but we’ll see, a volatile one.

Ukraine are maybe the easiest country to do a televote points estimation for in here following the assumption they don’t score much above their post ‘22 baseline. Said score makes them highly competetive on that front. Jury signs haven’t been amazing and in the context of the competition there are better options. Maybe a more average score there, not sure.

Malta have been pushing aggressively this year but there’s not much proof any of their investment is paying off and were this a televote only semi like the last few years would be sat odds-against I assume. Regardless of self generated false hype, I do think this is a good jury package that can gather a strong amount of consensus and is built around ticking jury boxes. Malta’s past as being well liked on the juries also plays a part and I think this does qualify on that side alone.

Czechia are pushing the limits for what can be considered a stage show and have been another to receive some hype but are the first we’ve got to where there are some very slight qualification concerns still based on the fact I could see this getting a very low Televote and I don't actually have this as a jury top 3 in the semi final still. It could well be, but I have them a little lower.

The night concludes with the sexiest show in town supposedly with whatever official asked Jonas Lovv to tone this down perhaps sharing a little too much about their proclivities. Norway have been that entry this year that inherently isn’t great but is carried by a performance of conviction and looks solid enough on many of the metrics, including last night’s audience poll. When push comes to shove and the question is explicitly pick up your phone and vote I expect this to fall a bit short of those heights now but this should be reaching 50+ points on both sides from this spot in the draw which makes them pretty safe, but not certain.

I only realised after the fact that I’d gone with the 10 qualification favs in semi one and so far I’m 9/10 here too. Switzerland break that streak here and benefits from a sub-optimal live performance and poor indicators from key rival Luxembourg and Latvia respectively and Cyprus opening the door. Alice feels like there’s just enough here for the jurors to get one more over the line and whilst the staging is not perfectly executed, there is an idea and a concept, and the message may resonate too if communicated, it’s definitely a jury friendly topic.

Cyprus had one job that I considered pretty easy and that was just to keep Antigoni’s voice from misfiring, and to a lesser extent don’t overwork her on the choreography. She has a lovely voice, when in tune and hitting the notes but that was certainly not the case in the rehearsal snippet which somewhat seemed to spark a downwards confidence spiral too. Last night was not great. Sad. It remains a pretty favourable semi final and despite not bringing anything original the songs a pretty good example of it’s genre. In danger and I have them just out.

Luxembourg remain outside the spots but Belgium’s qualification from semi one is potentially a good sign for both given it’s pretty likely the juries helped Essyla through and if the 18-25 jurors were the reason, I guess . The problem is however that this semi contains much more for jurors to reward as I’ve probably said an immesurable amount of times and this feels to have come up just short for me in the pecking order. Televote I am assuming is pretty low. I can’t shake the feeling this has been hanging around in the odds however like a dark Romanian spectre, constantly annoying me that it’s “only” 300-1 instead of 1000-1 etc so will inevitably be called first…

Latvia comes into this with a horrific eurojury score on basically this exact performance, which has to be mentioned for how absurd and worrying that was. Can it jump from 35th of 35th to 6th from the 10 here? Can it gather any significant televote appeal? The arena poll also says no. I wouldn’t consider this “a shock” but it feels out and there’s something a bit jarring about it overall that is preventing it doing better. Does feel a bit wronged by it’s metrics, but I’m not fighting it’s corner either.

Armenia is a more comfortable NQ call having shown very little on the jury side or many indicators of a strong televote push whilst at the bottom we have Azerbaijan, and credit to them, it’s not as terribly out of place as it looked in studio form but still, I think I’ve been generous giving this above 0 points from the televote and there’ll probably be a token amount from jurors, or the odd generous 10 from Malta etc. You can get 30+ to Q but probably shouldn’t. All in, an awful year for the Caucasus trio given Georgia’s probably distant exit and this pair comprising the bottom two, if I’m correct of course!

A note regarding the win percentages, these are a bit off from the points as in my prediction I am on the high end with Albania for example and low end for Ukraine.

It’s a really open semi at the top and there may not be much in it, certainly on the Televote where I have four practically inseparable. TLDR, I don’t really know what will happen but i’m fairly confident i’ll get at least nine qualifiers right again, in some order.

I’ve backed Cyprus to NQ at 3.4 to try and recover Semi E/W investments which obviously aren’t happening. Luckily exited many finals markets without too much issue. Albania, Norway, Romania and Bulgaria have been backed as outsiders to win or place here so hopefully there is at least one thing other than the expected top 3. Albania has been heavily backed to Q at up to 1.75 and I’ve took a bit of Switzerland too but that feels closely related to Cyprus being in or not… Armenia are tricky to write off for certain but I have opposed them to a small amount here.

Post semi hopefully we will learn something to be able to clarify things as that has still not happened yet to a degree of certainty. Good luck tonight with any bets and enjoy the show.