Eurovision Trivia: Favorites that sank in bookies’ numbers (part two)

After the first part of our Trivia,we procced to deal with other more recent years about favorites who missed the Grand Final or despite their qualification, did not bring the expected results to the Final. In this part, we will exammine some entries that finally had ended very low on the scoreboard or had never heard their country’s name as winner.

Let’s start a brief flashback of some recent entries with results that for many fans were unpleasantly surprising.

2009-Spain
In 2009, Soraya Arnelas represented Spain with a dance song, “La Noche Es Para Mi (The night is for me)”. Predictions were very hopefull fot Spain as many talked about a very good position  in the top ten after many failures in the previous years. However, “The noght was not for Soraya” as her participation ended in the penultimate position with 23 points. Of course, the entrydid not have the best live performance, but certainly no one expected the 24th place.

2011-Estonia
The truth is that many times in recent years Estonia was considered as a favorite without this to be imprinted in the final results. Getter Jaani‘s entry, with “Rockefeller Street” was such a case. In 2011, Estonia was the big favorite to win. However,the final results were really dissapointing. Getter Jaani ended in 24th place with 44 points. After the results were published, we understood that the public did not even pass Estonia to the final as they ranked it in the 13th place of the second semifinal. On the other hand, the juries were more generous as they ranked her sixth, with Getter taking the ninth position. One of the reasons the viewers turned their back was that the live performance seemed more like a children’s play and would fit more closely with Junior Eurovision.

2013-Germany
Only by the announcement of the participation of the well-known Cascada band in Germany‘s “Unser Song für Malmö“, many felt that the country would keep the raw of good places since 2010. As soon as the band won the national final with Glorious and was nominated to represent Germany, predictions put the country in the top ten. Cascada, however, did not do their best  as there were many accusations that the song had been copied enough Loreen’s last winning participation, “Eurhoria”. Although NDR’s German broadcaster had investigated the issue and faced charges, it seems that this scandal has affected a lot to the song’s progress in the contest. The above event, combined with its very impartial performance on the final night, ranked it only 21st with 18 points.

2013-San Marino
Valentina Monetta returns to the institution after her failure  to qualify to the final in 2012. She took part with the mid-tempo song “Crisalide (Vola)” which was made the fans’  favorite for several fans. Although there were great expectations a for the country’s first qualification to the final, the participation lost the ticket  since it was ranked 11th in the second semifinal with 47 points.

2014-Israel
Israel competed with Mei Finegold and the song “Same Heart“, and it was certain that it would qualify to the final as it was loved enough that year. However, the vocal result and its not so impressive performance led it penultimate in the second semifinal with 19 points.

2017-Finland
Last year, Finland took part in with Norma John and the song “Blackbird“. The excellent interpretation of Leena Tirronen and the predictions show an easy qualification to the final.. The first semifinal was completed and Finland was never announced as the song finished in 12th place with 92 points. The juries played a decisive role as they ranked it 12th while it got the tenth position in televoting.

2017-Estonia
Koite Toome and Laura returned to the institution with “Verona”. Many fans loved the song and it was one of the songs that they wanted to win. All this until the evening of the second semifinal  when we watched a modest performance on stage . The song failed to pass to the final and was limited to 14th place with 85 points. In this case, there was a great gap between  the televoting  and voting of juries. The audience gave Verona the sixth place and not the first place as many fans would expect, while the juries ranked Estonia penultimate with only 16 points. (Koit Toome had again taken part in 1998 with the song “Mere Lapsed”, which was ranked 12th while Laura participated in 2005 as a member of the Suntribe group with the song “Let’s Get Loud”, which was in the 20th place of the semi-final).