The first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2021 is just a few hours away, and so it’s time for us in the escgo! team to predict the 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!

Shi: Apparently, writing an entire post about trying to figure this semi out didn’t help, and it still came down to the same things I was not sure about before. Almost made it but didn’t: Norway, because I’m going to believe an old-fashioned song, below-average singing and those costumes aren’t enough until proven otherwise, and Croatia, because something had to give and the uptempos before and after her worked better for me in the jury show. Those two fought valiantly against Israel, Azerbaijan, Slovenia and Belgium – the other members of my “on again off again” crew of six songs I could never make up my mind about, and probably will still fail at this even as the qualifiers will be revealed.

My personal favorite for this semi is Russia, and I really hope it manages to come across for both the audience in the hall and at home.

Martin: Oh, that’s interesting – I thought I was going out on a limb by predicting Croatia to fail, but there it is with 0/3 from our team. I’m going to go a step further and say that two of the female up-tempos in the second half won’t make it, which I realise is a big punt. But let’s take a risk and say that Azerbaijan will end up being punished by the juries (well, those that aren’t inherently Azerbaijan-friendly) for so obviously making use of the recorded backing vocals. Who gets through instead? I did consider Romania – sympathy from the juries for last night’s technical problems isn’t impossible. But if we’re talking a sympathy vote, who better to receive it than Montaigne from Australia after the weird ESC 2021 journey she’s had?

My three personal favourites in the entire 2021 contest are in this semi – Russia, Belgium and Ukraine – so obviously I’m crossing my fingers that they all make it through…

Felix: As always, some of my predictions seemed more obvious than some others. I never believed that Belgium would qualify, but suddenly seeing a safe NQ for Croatia made me wonder about who’s gonna be on that 10th place then. Belgium, after all? I came to the conclusion that every semi-final needs a WTF moment, and that’s how I came up with North Macedonia, and that the final is still “the wrong place” for Belgium, and that the main problem lies within the song itself, not the genre. Croatia ruined itself with the staging. While I’m not sure who’s going to win this semi, it’s probably between Russia, Cyprus and Ukraine, I’m pretty sure that Ireland will end up in last place by quite a margin.

My personal favourites in this semi are Russia, Azerbaijan and Norway. If only two of these three make it to the final, I’m happy.

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