Portugal’s history at Eurovision is rather woeful, never managing anything higher than 6^th.  One of the personal highlights of Portuguese entries for me was their song ‘Keep The Dream Alive’, but unfortunately, came 22^nd out of 26.  When the Semi-Final was introduced in 2004, they were favourite to finish last, but despite failing to qualify, Sofia gave a great performance.  2005 saw one of Portugal’s best attempts yet.  Their song ‘Amar’ was a great mix of Portuguese and English, but the performers just didn’t pull it off on the night and it all came across a bit of an un-choreographed mess.  2006 saw Portugal enter their biggest girl group, and although they gave a pleasant enough performance, it still wasn't enough.  Last year however, a glimmer of hope shone through: despite not qualifying, Portugal came 11th in the Semi-Final, tantalisingly close to qualification and one of the best results they've seen for a long time at Eurovision.

 

 

After a string of bad results and a non existent track record of qualifications from the Semi-Final, things started to look up for Portugal last year, despite still not managing to qualify.  11^th place was a huge surprise for anyone who follows Eurovision, and it’s such a shame they were so tantalisingly close – it certainly would have been great to have seen Portugal in one of the ten envelopes last year, and to finally have been able to say they did better than every other Western country in the whole contest (if it were 20 years ago they would have won!).  However, unfortunately it was not to be and Portugal had to settle with the fact that it was an impressive, if rather insignificant result for them last year.  This year however, they’ve come up trumps again this year with fantastic ballad which translates to ‘Woman of the Seas’.  Vania sings really well and the performance at the National Selection was one of the most impressive we’ve seen this year.  The song has a very traditional feel to it, and despite the fact it’s traditional Western, it’s also traditionally European and may just manage to appeal across the board, reeling in points from the Eastern blocks as well.  With such a good draw, I’d say this could be guaranteed a place in the Final, but could get lost if it doesn’t get a good place in the running order.  I think it’s a great song, well performed and sung, and could give Portugal the best result they’ve seen at Eurovision in a very long time, if not, ever.

 

 

An initial prediction will appear here soon.

 

 

A prediction will appear here when all 25 songs in the Grand Final are known.