Predicting Copenhagen (1)

I'm not travelling to Copenhagen this year, but that's not going to stop me making predictions. But instead of going all out, and predicting the qualifiers from each semi and who's going to win, I'm just going to stick to one prediction - one wild prediction that will make me look ultra-clever if it comes off...

San Marino will qualify.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that 'Maybe' is a good song. In fact, it's probably the most hopeless of the three attempts Valentina Monetta's had at Eurovision. 'Facebook The Social Network Song' was at least ridiculously laughable and fun to make fun of, while 'Crisalide (Vola)', for all its misguided slow-slow-fast structure, and fanboy-baiting sub-Italian balladry, at least sounded like it was written to actually try and attract attention and votes (and was ridiculously laughable and fun to make fun of).

'Maybe', meanwhile, is just nothing. It's just there. It's telling, really, that the fan community that had so much to say about 'The Social Network Song', and so much love for 'Crisalide (Vola)', is barely speaking about 'Maybe'. It's currently sitting in a mediocre, average and unnoticed 24th on the ESC Nation poll.

But I think that's safe enough. In a year with 16 songs in a semi-final, all of which have to be ranked by every juror, I think it's going to end up a safe 8th or so will all of them. Safe is often seen as the name of the game at Eurovision at the moment, under the current system, at least when it comes to getting a 'safe' result, i.e. qualifying.

For argument's sake, let's say that the jurors don't go for it, or their votes are diluted by an underwhelmed televote. I still think 'Maybe' has a decent chance of giving San Marino their first trip to the final. 'Crisalide', for all its fan-love, should never have been approaching qualifying, being the 'Sense tu in a wig' that it was. And it was 11th. We've seen in both the last two years that San Marino have, shall we say, a slightly suspicious level of jury-love. They don't have Malta in their semi-final this year, but they do have Azerbaijan, Albania and Montenegro, all old friends who love the parmesan and tinned ham, and with juries who have given some votes that have been, shall we say, rather interesting to analyse.

Will these countries even record a televote? Top marks from each of their juries would immediately be 36 points, before anything else has been considered - and in a semi-final of 16 countries, I think that 36 points could be enough to qualify.

That's it, I've stuck my neck out. I encourage my fellow bloggers to do the same, and tell us all their wild prediction for 2014.