{"id":65618,"date":"2026-05-14T23:41:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T23:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/65618\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T23:41:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T23:41:57","slug":"australia-malta-advance-to-eurovision-semifinals-eva-marija-snubbed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/65618\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia, Malta Advance to Eurovision Semifinals; Eva Marija Snubbed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAustralia defied the oddsmakers and established itself as a surprise frontrunner at the Eurovision<\/a> semifinal Thursday while a trio of past winners \u2014 including 2024 champion Switzerland \u2014 failed to advance.<\/p>\n

\n\tSwitzerland joined Latvia and Luxembourg as erstwhile title-holders who won\u2019t have the chance to grab another Eurovision crown as the final 25 nations were set for the weekend\u2019s big singing showdown in Vienna.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 70th-annual homage to soaring and sometimes silly song production will anoint a winner Saturday, ending a months-long saga that saw five countries boycott over the inclusion of Israel. The Middle Eastern nation had not broken any rules, but its presence in the competition prompted Spain, Slovenia, Ireland, Iceland and the Netherlands not to compete as a protest over Israel\u2019s military actions in Gaza and Lebanon. Israel earlier in the week advanced to the final in the first of two semifinals.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter enduring wars, unrest, infighting and Celine Dion, Eurovision is still going strong many decades in, watched by more than 150 million people across the continent \u2014 though with financial difficulties brought on by the boycotts<\/a>, is on much shakier ground than it was even a year go.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Austrian emcees sought to put a brave \u2014 or at least sequined<\/a> \u2014 face at the semifinals Thursday night, complete with the usual over-the-top country shoutouts and awful puns. It resulted in some big wins for small countries.
\u00a0
Malta<\/a>, a quiet powerhouse that finished second twice in the 2000s and which has a reputation for putting on a good show, advanced at the Austrian capital\u2019s Stadthalle. Aidan\u2019s \u201cBella<\/a>\u201d won over the mix of jurors and public televoters that determine the winners. A lounge song <\/a>sung in English and (some) Maltese by a man wearing a leather-vested cowboy outfit, \u201cBella\u201d will try to bring back the Maltan mojo; the country will compete in only its second final in five years.<\/p>\n

\n\tDenmark also unsurprisingly advanced with\u00a0S\u00f8ren Torpegaard Lund\u2019s F\u00f8r Vi G\u00e5r Hjem \u2014\u00a0an EDM-backed, glam rock-flavored ode to forbidden love<\/a> \u2014 \u00a0and sits in fourth in most betting markets.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the night\u2019s big winner was Australia, which after flying under the radar emerged as a frontrunner on betting markets, landing in third place after its strong showing Thursday.\u00a0Delta Goodrem\u2019s soaring pop ballad\u00a0<\/a>\u201cEclipse<\/a>\u201d will try to give Downunder its first-ever win since joining Eurovision in 2015.<\/p>\n

Not every country enjoyed such good fortune. Latvia, which won in 2002 with Marie N.\u2019s \u201cI Wanna,\u201d came up short as Atvara\u2019s doleful solo\u00a0<\/a>\u201cEna\u201d didn\u2019t make the cut.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While on the bubble to get past the semifinal with oddsmakers, Switzerland\u2019s Veronica Fusaro turned in a strong performance with her pyrotechnics-heavy blues<\/a> \u201cAlice,\u201d but couldn\u2019t get over the hump with jurors and televoters.\u00a0The country won\u2019t repeat its feat from two years ago, when Nemo\u2019s heartfelt trans anthem \u201cThe Code\u201d took the top spot.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most notable omission \u2014 or at least greatest evidence of the contest\u2019s disconnect with the U.S. pop scene \u2014 came with Luxembourg. \u201cMother Nature,\u201d a Top 40-ready English-language number <\/a>from the telegenic 20-year-old Eva Marija, somehow did not move European voters and jurors. The small landlocked nation once dominated Eurovision, winning five times in the 1960s and early 1970s. After declining to participate for 30 years, Luxembourg returned in 2024 but is still searching for its first top ten finish.<\/p>\n

The two top betting contenders ahead of Australia and Denmark had already advanced in Tuesday\u2019s semifinal. Finland occupies the top spot thanks to\u00a0Linda Lampenius and Pete Parkkonen\u2019s violin-backed tortured love song<\/a> \u201cLiekinheitin.\u201d\u00a0Greece sits right behind it with \u201cFerto,\u201d rapper Akylas\u2019 nonsense ode<\/a> to the good life while wearing a tiger costume.<\/p>\n

Israel currently rounds out the top five with \u201cMichelle<\/a>,\u201d French-Israeli singer Noam Bettan\u2019s Middle Eastern-vibed tri-lingual tribute<\/a> to a very rhymable title lady. But even with the stiff competition ahead of it, the country has become a subject of intense interest.<\/p>\n

\n\tIsrael finished second in Eurovision last year, and the nation is likely to compete strongly again, as its entrant features a charismatic performer singing a feel-good love song while an Israeli European diaspora and its allies take out their phones to support it. Still, comparisons to 2025 may be inexact: last year\u2019s Israeli performer was Yuval Raphael, a Nova massacre survivor singing \u201cNew Day Will Rise,\u201d giving the performance a resilience theme Bettan can\u2019t match.<\/p>\n

Israel is a surprise Eurovision powerhouse \u2014 it is one of only seven countries to have won the contest at least four times, with its most recent win in 2018.<\/p>\n

The final takes place Saturday night in Vienna with the expected melismas, wails, crescendoes and fire shooting out of the stage for absolutely no reason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia defied the oddsmakers and established itself as a surprise frontrunner at the Eurovision semifinal Thursday while a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[35760,35761,11017,18131,4450,16813,7204,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-65618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-switzerland","8":"tag-bella","9":"tag-eclipse","10":"tag-eurovision","11":"tag-eurovision-2026","12":"tag-eurovision-song-contest","13":"tag-malta","14":"tag-michelle","15":"tag-switzerland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116575583939251157","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}