The first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 is just a few hours away, and so it’s time for us in the escgo! team to predict the first ten qualifiers for the grand final on Saturday.

You can see the choices of Martin, Felix and Shi in the table below – followed by a brief summary of their views!

Country	Martin	Felix	Shi	TEAM
Iceland			Q
Poland	Q		Q
Slovenia		Q
Estonia	Q	Q	Q
Ukraine	Q	Q	Q
Sweden	Q	Q	Q
Portugal	Q
Norway	Q	Q	Q
Belgium	Q	Q	Q
Azerbaijan
San Marino		Q
Albania	Q	Q	Q
Netherlands	Q	Q	Q
Croatia
Cyprus	Q	Q	Q

Martin:
Well, this is fun! Eurovision 2025 starts tonight and I don’t feel burnt out or “over” the songs for once. The relative lack of rehearsal footage is the reason for that – but, of course, that’s also what makes predicting so tricky. Nevertheless, the above is my best guess. It hurts me a little to leave out Iceland and Slovenia, but I don’t quite see them having the necessary impact from so early in the running order.

On the qualifier side, Norway and Poland feel a little borderline to me – and I was quite doubtful about Belgium before rehearsals began, but they seem to be giving it the full Loïc Nottet arty treatment so should avoid a repeat of last year’s Mustii flop. In my heart I probably do expect San Marino to make it really, but since they’re managing the impressive feat of making an uptempo song come across as very dull, they don’t deserve to. Instead, let’s predict Portugal, because every qualifier reveal needs a “wtf?” moment.

Felix:
I’m going into this prediction without the insights that we had in previous years, and I wasn’t exactly diving into the few available bits of content either, so my prediction is mostly based on very basic stuff like songs and gut feeling.

Despite Slovenia’s early draw, I think the song benefits from serving a genre without any rivals in this line-up. Not so sure about Norway, Belgium and San Marino, of which the performances all might suffer from a lack of connection with the viewer. Sweden will win tonight’s show, and also the widely anticipated Albanian qualification feels very very safe.

Shi:
Going into a semi-final with very little idea of what we’ll see tonight might make predicting harder, but I suspect it will improve the viewing experience by quite a bit! Either way, not having much to go on never stopped me before, and having even less to go on won’t stop me now, either.

It’s an odd semi, really. With the exception of Sweden (and perhaps the Netherlands) there’s nothing here that will totally shock me if it qualifies and also if it doesn’t. For almost every entry I can find a reason for why it will qualify and also for why it won’t. With that said, math exists, so I think that songs like Estonia, Cyprus and Norway are probably safe too.

Iceland is fun and catchy, and while the performance leaves a lot to be desired I think that opening the semi and its teen appeal might give it enough of a boost to make it through. On the other hand, San Marino has one of the catchiest tunes this year but its presentation does absolutely nothing for it. In contrast, Belgium’s song and performer aren’t particularly impressive, but it seems like the staging is getting everything it can out of it and sometimes that’s all you need.

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