Portugal had one of the few one horse race national finals of this year.
'Grito' did stand out from the day that the audio files of the entries were released and never looked back.
The performance in Festival da Canção was spot on and remains to be seen if the natural force that 'Grito' has will take it to the Final.
Portugal has a great advantage and a great disadvantage at the same time. The good news is the running order, being the penultimate entry on stage and Luxembourg coming after them. The later the better, especially in a Semi - Final with eighteen entries if the automatic qualifiers are also included.
The major disadvantage is of course the genre of the song. A typical Portuguese slow-tempo sad song that with the older system would be sailing to the Final, now might be a marginal qualifier.
Quality wise Portugal should make the cut, having the latter draw to Serbia which is the other Jury magnet of the Semi. In case Serbia makes it though, we will probably have 7/7 qualifiers from the first half and that leaves room for only three more from the second half.
Assuming that Finland is safe, it is Portugal, Australia, Luxembourg and Slovenia fighting for the last two tickets and Luxembourg has the extra advantage of the pimp slot.
The market has been puzzled by this one and now is close to odds on, for the moment holding tight the tenth spot.
Portugal's history in Public Voting is not great either and for that reason I do find the current odds fair.
If I had to call it today, qualifying would be my answer. If it reaches the Final, I would not rule out a Top-10 result with Juries and a low Public Vote to leave Portugal hanging somewhere between 15th-22nd.
It reminds me of...
Portugal '08 (Q)
Televoting Potential: 6.5/10
Jury Potential: 8.5/10
Staging Potential: 8/10
Momentum: 7/10
My Opinion: 8/10
Total: 38/50
What the fair winning chance % would be?
0.01%-0.1%
Best case scenario:
Top-15
Worst case scenario:
NQ
Pre-Contest estimated points:
SF: 35-55
Final: Js: 40-125 - TV: 15-50 - Total: 55-175
What do I see in my crystal ball?
Portugal qualifying 10th and then getting a mid-table result with Juries and a Bottom-5 with Public Vote that will rank them 17th-20th.
You can hear my thoughts about Portugal in the Eurovision podcast 'Talk About Things' co-hosted with the Eurovision experts @mat_rickard and @Panos_Zannettos at
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