How did you do with your predictions on the first semi-final? You can remind yourself of ours here – and now, with semi 2 just a few hours away, it’s time for us in the escgo! team to predict the last ten qualifiers for the grand final on Saturday.

You can see the choices of Shi, Martin and Felix in the table below – followed by a brief summary of their views!

Country	Martin	Felix	Shi	TEAM
Finland	Q	Q	Q
Israel
Serbia	Q	Q	Q
Azerbaijan	Q	Q	Q
Georgia
Malta		Q	Q
San Marino	Q	Q
Australia	Q	Q	Q
Cyprus
Ireland			Q
North Macedonia
Estonia	Q	Q	Q
Romania		Q
Poland	Q	Q	Q
Montenegro
Belgium	Q
Sweden	Q	Q	Q
Czech Republic	Q		Q

Martin: As much as I fear it qualifying, I’m going to say that Israel is this semi’s Latvia – garish, loud, getting good notices for its rehearsals, but still doomed because it’s just not good. Conversely, San Marino feels like this semi’s Moldova – also fairly rubbish, but performed so persuasively that it’ll be impossible to resist (unless you’re me). I hope I’m wrong about Australia, but the Eurovision gods aren’t that kind; it should be pure jury catnip just like Azerbaijan and, I suppose, Belgium – though I admit I’m including Jérémie more out of logic than any real conviction. And I truly hope I’m wrong about Ireland – I would love Brooke to make it, but I don’t dare jinx it by putting a Q next to it. Speaking of which, I so nearly ended up replacing the Czech Republic with Malta or even… Montenegro. They couldn’t, could they…?

Martin’s favourites: Oh god, Sweden is head and shoulders above anything else in this semi. Beyond that, Serbia has been a real grower for me, and I think its weirdness works in its favour in quite a vanilla semi-final. I kinda love Georgia too, but that’s too far beyond the weirdness threshold to connect with others here. Shame.

Felix: Okay, after having only got 7/10 right on Tuesday, I went back to my own pseudo-scientific system to predict the qualifiers. The Top 3 will probably consist of Estonia, Sweden and Serbia, but the order isn’t that clear for me yet. Montenegro will be somewhere around the borderline, and I went for the NQ side of it, together with Czech Republic. Instead, I’m positive about Malta and San Marino. Songs with messages and good stagings, performed by countries with enough automatic supporters, should be safely Q, no matter the vocals. Azerbaijan is not winning its Q based on the song, but on him. Romania might fail, but I have the feeling there will be enough supporters for what it is: A fun guilty pleasure, but also without much competition in this semi-final. The last place will probably be occupied by North Macedonia or Ireland. There, I said it.

Felix’s favourites: Totally Serbia, Georgia and Estonia, and with a small gap, Romania. Also Sweden is a good one, which I however don’t feel a lot of passion for.

Shi: The second semi-final is a somewhat tragic combination of “I have no idea” and “I also don’t really care” which is both quite unfortunate, and also how I pretty much ended up eenie meenie miney moing about half of my qualifiers here. Sweden is a given, and I feel like Azerbaijan, Poland and Estonia are all safe, as well as Finland who might scare the shit out of me but also have their audience. After that? I could have made a case for most of the remaining songs to make it. Picked Serbia because it’s a unique attention-grabber, Australia as jury fodder, Ireland for her sweet charm, Czech Republic for its competency and Malta because it’s exactly the type of thing Malta qualifies with. There’s very little in this semi that I would be shocked to see make or not make it, though.

Shi’s favourites: While there’s nothing here that can bring me actual joy to the degree of seeing both Iceland and the Netherlands qualify on Tuesday, I quite like Estonia and Azerbaijan, and I also assume both are pretty safe. However, not having personal attachments means I can just sit back and enjoy finding out what songs will complete the final line-up.

Who do you agree with and what do you think will be the big shocks tonight? Let us know in the comments!