After a few surprises in semi final 1 let’s see what semi final 2 has in store for us:

Safe Qualifiers

Switzerland’s Nemo has brought impressive staging that creates an epic feeling. Jurors will of course love this for its technicality and strong overall impression. I’m not totally convinced by its televote appeal just yet, it feels like there is a lot going on without a key message/theme or storytelling. Although, its strong audience poll result means we can’t rule out it out of victory contention just yet. The Netherlands have gone all in on the the televote route, turning up the comedy with the staging. The pimp slot should do its job and see this handily win the semi final. However, this certainly won’t be fighting for the Eurovision trophy, as it’s simply just too comedic for jurors. Yet, I can still see it getting a very good televote score that places it in the 4th-6th range of the final standing. Israel is the big unknown in this years contest. Eden’s performance of Hurricane is quite boring. They have gone down quite a theatrical staging direction, which could help its jury score a little bit. Last night, booing was audible on the TV heard. If we see that again tonight, it’s the ultimate vote motivator for Israel supporters. Armenia is one that I have been hopeful of in terms of reaching the top 10 in the final, however the live performance is missing something for me. Greece is fun and enjoyable but the staging is a missed opportunity. Although I think the last minute is great, there’s no real coherence in the performance and it lacks a cultural identity that there is in the music video. Marina’s vocal has been a bit off too. Looking at the final, I think a result in the 9-13th range is still possible. Norway significantly underperformed my expectations with the audience poll. I think it suffers coming after Israel and all the distractions during that performance. If booing is audible during Israel tonight then viewers too could also be very distracted, which isn’t what Norway wants. I find her vocal at ESC to be even more piercing when compared to MGP but I still think it can score decently well in the North and East. Georgia’s Nutsa is an amazingly talented artist and gives it her all on stage. I find that there is something missing with the overall package and it does come across dated. She will sail through to the final but i’m a bit sceptical about how high she can go in the final.

Borderlines and the rest

There had been some doubt about Estonia this week but the performance has been polished compared to Eesti Laul and still retains its fun. I have it going through comfortably now. Belgium’s Mustii performed twice last night and his vocal during the verses was noticeably poor. This afternoon, he did improve. My main concern with Mustii has always been his aloofness and how voteable this is. However, the song seems strong enough to go through and has a target audience that should help it over the line. Although, I think if one of the odds on 10 fails, it’ll be this one. Austria’s Kaleen has a fun performance but is noticeably lacking confidence. The backing track is loud but you are able to notice some vocal vulnerabilities. There is potential for this to end up being Halo 2.0, but I think there’s enough entertainment value and fans voting in the semi which should see it through in 9-10th place. Malta‘s Sarah is a great performer but suffers in the running order with 2 more girlbops following on later. I imagine that we’ll be seeing a lot of comparisons to Chanel and female “copycats” have never gone down well with the public. Latvia is as competent as ever but I think the performance is just a bit too boring for viewers to be remembering this when the lines open. Denmark is competent but feels too safe in a televote semi final. Saba was noticeably struggling last night too. Czechia are delivering a great performance. I’m still not sure about how voteable this is but it does have its fans and the genre is currently popular with younger generations which means it’s not completely hopeless. San Marino has been getting some hype over the last 24 hours. The staging for this is stunning and there’s some great visual storytelling. Megara have done everything they can to put themselves in contention and help from Spain and Italy means they’re firmly in the mix. Albania has about every friend they could ask for in this semi but will they turn out is the big question. I tipped this before at 3s but since then, it’s clear that the Eurovision performance is pretty weak. We’ve seen from Luna that diaspora just won’t show up if the performance is bad, but it does seem like the Albanian diaspora is more patriotic. Their last english language entry scored 38 points, so they’re still in the mix for tonight.

Big 5: Italy are on the drift after a decent performance but that’s where the issue lies with this. It was just decent, not excellent. After watching this twice, it’s clear the staging has gone down the wrong direction and the performance has lost the charisma we all saw at Sanremo. France is an act which I was initially sceptical at the start of the season, but this is performed excellently. It now appears to be a lot more softer than aggressive, which is what it was appearing to me in previous performance. Spain is still my pick for last place.

Predicted qualifiers: Switzerland, Netherlands, Israel, Armenia, Greece, Norway, Estonia, Belgium Austria and Georgia

Recommended bets:

Back Netherlands To Win Semi Final 2, Georgia & Estonia Both To Qualify @2.20 (William Hill)

Back Israel Top 3, Norway, Greece & Armenia to Qualify @2.1 (StarSports Bet)

Back France to beat Italy @2.25 (Unibet)

Back France Top 5 @2.1 (SkyBet)

Back Sweden Top Nordic @1.8 (Unibet)

Already tipped:

Albania to Q @3.0

Netherlands to win SF2 @2.0

Israel Top 3 in Semi @2.2