At last! That was the general response last year when Anouk dragged the Netherlands through to their first appearance in the Eurovision grand final since 2004 - and all it took was a credible artist singing a good song. Who knew? Now the Dutch are looking to repeat...

After last year's Balkan debacle where none of the ex-Yugoslav countries made it to the final, several of them withdrew from this year's contest (or, in Bosnia's case, stayed away), leaving just a few remaining - one of which is Montenegro who, as yet, have not...

Ever since Moldova joined the contest, it only missed the final once - when Geta Burlacu made herself comfortable with a teddy bear on a sofa. Indeed, in the last three years Moldova has been consistently knocking on the door of the top 10, so the country is quite...

Malta are one of Eurovision's most enthusiastic countries but as yet this hasn't paid off with a win; the closest they've come to a victory was in both 2002 and 2005, when they came second. However, after Gaia Cauchi's victory at Junior Eurovision in December, will...

Macedonia's record in the Eurovision Song Contest can be broadly divided in three: the "hopeless case" early phase, the "permanent qualifier" middle phase, and the "they really don't want us in the final any more, do they?" recent phase. OK, that's a simplification,...

Now I have the difficult task of writing about Lithuania, the Baltic country that not long ago achieved its third best ever result with Love Is Blind. Despite tending to send songs that don't gain a lot of attention, Lithuania is mostly a surprise qualifier - even...

Latvia had one of the most impressive starts for a country at Eurovision ever, with a third place on its first attempt and a victory on its third. However, the Baltic country has failed to qualify for the final ever since 2009. In the national selection format Dziesma...

Having won twice and contributed several evergreen classics to the contest, Italy settled into a long-term absence from ESC in the late 1990s. After (or perhaps despite) many years of pleading by fans, the country finally returned to competition in 2011 - and promptly...

Israel have had rather mixed results in the semi-final era so far with 5 out of 10 qualifications to the final, but they last qualified in 2010, and they haven't been in the top 10 in the final since Bo'az Mauda in 2008 - which is their worst run of results since they...

These line-up check pieces usually begin with a recap of the country's recent ESC history, but in this case it might be more appropriate to look at the composer's track record, because Jonas Gladnikoff - who has a hand in the 2014 Irish entry - has been a regular in...

Iceland haven’t had it easy in the last decade: With the exception of one silver medal, courtesy of Yohanna and Is It True in 2009, all their entries finished either in the bottom half of the final, or – between 2006 and 2008 – didn't even qualify. Will this year's...

In Malmö, Hungary scored its best result since 2007 (Unsubstantial Blues), as ByeAlex recorded a decent top 10 finish with Kedvesem. In the years before, the country was less successful, despite delivering strong entries including fan favourite Kati Wolf. For the...