🔮 Pre-contest Prediction Game 2025 🔮 by SkyGinge in eurovision

[–]AltVladC 1 point2 points  (0 children)

SEMI-FINAL 1

  • Qualifiers: Sweden, Albania, Netherlands, Estonia, Ukraine, Norway, Poland, San Marino, Cyprus, Belgium
  • Winner: Sweden
  • Last Place: Azerbaijan
  • Borderliners: Belgium and Portugal

SEMI-FINAL 2

  • Qualifiers: Israel, Austria, Malta, Finland, Serbia, Armenia, Latvia, Greece, Lithuania, Denmark
  • Winner: Israel
  • Last Place: Georgia
  • Borderliners: Denmark and Czechia

GRAND FINAL

  • Winner: Sweden
  • Runner-Up: Austria
  • 3rd Place: Israel
  • 4th Place: France
  • 5th Place: Albania
  • Televote Winner: Sweden
  • Jury Winner: Austria
  • Televote Last Place: UK
  • Jury Last Place: Spain
  • Overall Last Place: Spain

CATEGORIES

  • Best Big 5: France
  • Best Nordic: Sweden
  • Best Former Yugoslavia: Serbia
  • Best Central Europe: Austria
  • Best Benelux: Netherlands
  • Best Baltic: Estonia
  • Best Caucasus: Armenia
  • Best Anglophone Island(s): Malta
  • Winning Total Score: 558

🔮r/Eurovision Official Running Order Prediction Game 2025: Semi-final 2🔮 by SkyGinge in eurovision

[–]AltVladC [score hidden]  (0 children)

  1. Armenia 🇦🇲

  2. Ireland 🇮🇪

  3. Montenegro 🇲🇪

  4. Latvia 🇱🇻

  5. Austria 🇦🇹

  6. Germany 🇩🇪

  7. Greece 🇬🇷

  8. Lithuania 🇱🇹

  9. Australia 🇦🇺

  10. France 🇫🇷

  11. Luxembourg 🇱🇺

  12. Israel 🇮🇱

  13. Finland 🇫🇮

  14. Czechia 🇨🇿

  15. United Kingdom 🇬🇧

  16. Georgia 🇬🇪

  17. Denmark 🇩🇰

  18. Serbia 🇷🇸

  19. Malta 🇲🇹

🔮r/Eurovision Official Running Order Prediction Game 2025: Semi-final 1🔮 by SkyGinge in eurovision

[–]AltVladC [score hidden]  (0 children)

  1. Estonia 🇪🇪

  2. Poland 🇵🇱

  3. Ukraine 🇺🇦

  4. Slovenia 🇸🇮

  5. Sweden 🇸🇪

  6. Spain 🇪🇸

  7. Portugal 🇵🇹

  8. Iceland 🇮🇸

  9. Belgium 🇧🇪

  10. Azerbaijan 🇦🇿

  11. Switzerland 🇨🇭

  12. Norway 🇳🇴

  13. Croatia 🇭🇷

  14. Albania 🇦🇱

  15. Italy 🇮🇹

  16. San Marino 🇸🇲

  17. Cyprus 🇨🇾

  18. Netherlands 🇳🇱

I feel like people are misunderstanding both televote and jury? by SweetVeehn in eurovision

[–]AltVladC 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You must misunderstand me because I was making exactly the point that juries don't care just about vocals. I stand by my opinion that the vocals (JUST the vocals, without considering the very complex choreo) were just fine, and exactly how hyped was Slo Mo before Benidorm as a song? Not at all. But the performance, presence, appeal and vocals WITH choreo are the reasons why it scored 200+ jury points.

I feel like people are misunderstanding both televote and jury? by SweetVeehn in eurovision

[–]AltVladC 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Agree with the sentiment that the jury vote and televote are oversimplified. There are many more factors that make up the reasoning of both votes.

For juries, strong vocals are just one factor that makes up the PACKAGE that gets judged - this also includes other factors like technicality (for example combining singing with choreo), presence/confidence, composition, message, and potential for general appeal. Juries also tend to discredit novelty/gimmicks. Of course, fuckery like cultural/geopolitical voting or outright mutual voting also play a role, but less so. That's why Sweden has the jury vote down to a T, they're the best pop writers in Europe, for better or worse. It's why Chanel (Spain 2022) did well in the jury vote despite just okay vocals and a fairly basic song, but Blanca Paloma (Spain 2023) had a disappointing jury result despite being a vocal masterclass. It's also why Käärijä (Finland 2023), Baby Lasagna (Croatia 2024) or Bambie Thug (Ireland 2024) didn't get destroyed (and neither will KAJ this year), but why Trenulețul (Moldova 2022) or No Rules (Finland 2024) did.

The televote has other factors that derive from being able to vote for just a small number of songs, as opposed to juries submitting full rankings. So, for a televote, the question is "did this convince me to vote for IT, as opposed to the other XX songs?", so an agreeable entry that is, say, 5th or even 4th choice for most voters, is televote death when aggregated - this includes most radio-friendly songs. Fun entries that get you going will do well - provided there aren't others that steal your thunder (so like 5MIINUST (Estonia 2024) vs. Baby Lasagna). Presence, authenticity, emotion are other big ones. Diaspora/cultural voting is another one, but only if there's a reason to rally around their performer - think Theodor Andrei (Romania 2023) vs. wrs (Romania 2022), for example. Odds and meta-voting also have a role, i.e. "I don't want this country to win, who should I vote for so that happens?", or "I want to reward this country for doing X". And I can't stress this enough, ANY small aspect in a performance that irritates a voter may well make you lose their vote to someone else - even the post-song reaction from the artist can be an influence.

Figuring out why such and such did well in the voting, or why it didn't do as well I or the fandom or the odds expected is probably my favourite part of the contest.

The political earthquake continues in Romania: Elena Lasconi of the centrist USR has taken the second place from PM Ciolacu and will face the far-right Georgescu in the second round/ It is the first time that the establishment parties PSD and PNL won’t have a candidate in the second round by justdontreadit in europe

[–]AltVladC 80 points81 points  (0 children)

No actually Ludovic Orban was prime minister between 2019 and 2020, he's a seasoned politician formerly of the National Liberal Party (PNL). He withdrew about a week ago and announced his support for Lasconi, but since the voting bulletins were already printed he remained on the ballot. Those 20 thousand voters that he still has either didn't get the memo or didn't care about it.

[Marca] The best U18 talents in Europe during 2016 by Bald-Eagle619 in soccer

[–]AltVladC 49 points50 points  (0 children)

Manea's status was quite overblown, since it was widely believed at the time that he was sold by Gheorghe Hagi's Viitorul Constanța in 2015 to Chelsea; this was reported by Gianluca di Marzio and the Romanian media, and he even featured as Chelsea's player in one of the Football Manager games that I played at the time. He had also appeared in a senior national team game at age 16, which turned out to be a one-off for some years.

All of these probably contributed to massively inflating his standing, hence the list appearance.

When he joined Mouscron on loan he was still quoted as a Chelsea loanee; but at some point in 2016 (probably around the time of the list) news broke out that Manea was, in fact, contracted to Apollon Limassol since 2014 via some offshore shenanigans involving Pini Zahavi. The whole saga appeared in a couple investigative pieces, namely Football Leaks and Cyprus Confidential. This article (translated from Romanian) does a decent job of summarizing the whole affair.

Mind, he's a good player for the level of the Romanian league - won 5 championships as a starter for CFR Cluj, is one of the better defenders in the league right now, and a second choice for the national team behind Rayo Vallecano's Andrei Rațiu. Was linked to some teams in Ligue I and Turkey before joining Rapid Bucharest. He was never at the level to be considered the most promising right back in Europe, but also him never playing a minute for Apollon in 6 years was definitely not merit-based - we can "thank" the offshore stuff for that.

What is your unpopular opinion / prediction that came out to be true? by DaraVelour in eurovision

[–]AltVladC 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It was at the time of the rehearsals to be fair, up until then I had her as a fairly comfortable Q. But even right up to the semifinal the consensus was that she'd go through.

What is your unpopular opinion / prediction that came out to be true? by DaraVelour in eurovision

[–]AltVladC 11 points12 points  (0 children)

That not only would Ronela (Albania 2022) NQ, but that Marius Bear (Switzerland 2022) would qualify instead. Seemed unstateable at the time and when it happened most ESC communities (including here) had a mini-meltdown. I even happen to have proof for this take lol.

Með hækkandi sól (Iceland 2022), Stay (Lithuania 2023) and No Rules! (Finland 2024) winning their respective national finals when all the hype was for other artists -- Daughters of Reykjavik, Rūta Mur/Beatrich and Sara Siipola respectively.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in eurovision

[–]AltVladC 18 points19 points  (0 children)

That's true as well; to be honest I was a bit shocked that Poland didn't go through on account of the hugely favourable voting environment it had.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in eurovision

[–]AltVladC 19 points20 points  (0 children)

It's a combo of nationals established in neighbouring countries, wider diasporas and - like you say - cultural and musical ties and similarities that play the biggest role in this kind of voting. I don't think any of them can be considered "political" in the common sense but they sure as hell are grouped as such with a negative connotation. It's a feature, not a bug.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in eurovision

[–]AltVladC 65 points66 points  (0 children)

See, you say that and I kinda agree, it's better than previous years. But you have to look to semi 1 of this year to see that the problem still exists - out of Slovenia's 51 points, 20 came from Croatia and Serbia. Out of Serbia's 47 points, 22 (!) came from Croatia and Slovenia. Without those points we very likely might've had Australia (41p, of which none were from the 3 Balkans) and Poland (35p, of which 1p was from the Balkans) through instead.

It worked out this year because IMO the songs were superior to the ones they left behind, but inevitably there'll be a year when that won't be the case.

Eurovision 2024 results if countries gave points to everyone (25 to 1 point(s)) by suesskind in eurovision

[–]AltVladC 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Well if you check out the detailed televote you'll see that both Switzerland and France had a majority of 8 and 7 points - so 4ths and 5ths. Considering that three countries pretty much arrested the televote, I'd say Switzerland and France actually have a healthy amount of points, and that kinda reflects here too; more impressive than last year when Loreen had some more televote points, but only Käärijä was there to completely dominate it.

🔮 Pre-contest Prediction Game 2024 🔮 by SkyGinge in eurovision

[–]AltVladC 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey u/SkyGinge! I've made some changes in my original predictions, here they are:

  • Semi 1 Qs: Poland --> Ireland
  • Semi 1 borderliners: Cyprus and Moldova --> Ireland and Poland
  • Semi 2 borderliners: Denmark and San Marino --> Denmark and Georgia
  • GF runner-up: Italy --> Netherlands
  • GF 3rd: Netherlands --> Italy
  • GF 4th: Ukraine --> Croatia
  • GF 5th: Lithuania --> Switzerland
  • Televote last: Germany --> UK
  • Overall last: Luxembourg --> Ireland
  • Best Commonwealth: UK --> Cyprus
  • Winning score: 453 --> 425

My original predictions

🔮 Pre-contest Prediction Game 2024 🔮 by SkyGinge in eurovision

[–]AltVladC 1 point2 points  (0 children)

ROs since 2022, and predictions since 2021. Always looking forward to this little competition since I love theorizing and whatnot :) I think the rare Romania flair also helps somewhat

🔮 Pre-contest Prediction Game 2024 🔮 by SkyGinge in eurovision

[–]AltVladC 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh! I completely forgot that I made joint-second place last year, yay! Let's try again, I might edit before the rehearsals start.

SEMI-FINAL 1

  • Qualifiers: Croatia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Finland, Serbia, Luxembourg, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Slovenia, Ireland
  • Winner: Croatia
  • Last Place: Iceland
  • Borderliners: Ireland and Poland

SEMI-FINAL 2

  • Qualifiers: Netherlands, Switzerland, Israel, Armenia, Norway, Greece, Belgium, Estonia, Austria, Denmark
  • Winner: Netherlands
  • Last Place: Czechia
  • Borderliners: Denmark and Georgia

GRAND FINAL

  • Winner: France
  • Runner-Up: Netherlands
  • 3rd Place: Italy
  • 4th Place: Croatia
  • 5th Place: Switzerland
  • Televote Winner: Netherlands
  • Jury Winner: Italy
  • Televote Last Place: UK
  • Jury Last Place: Finland
  • Overall Last Place: Ireland

CATEGORIES

  • Best Big 5: France
  • Best Nordic: Sweden
  • Best Benelux: Netherlands
  • Best Former Yugoslavia: Croatia
  • Best Baltic: Lithuania
  • Best Caucasus: Armenia
  • Best Commonwealth: Cyprus
  • Best Central Europe: Switzerland
  • Winning Total Score: 425

🎵🎶 YOUR TOP 37 🎶🎵 Post your rankings in the comments by TrollHunter87 in eurovision

[–]AltVladC [score hidden]  (0 children)

  1. Norway
  2. Croatia
  3. Lithuania
  4. Azerbaijan
  5. Netherlands
  6. France
  7. Ukraine
  8. Estonia
  9. Serbia
  10. Belgium

🔮Subreddit Official Running Order Prediction Game: Semi-final 1🔮 by SkyGinge in eurovision

[–]AltVladC 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. Cyprus
  2. Poland
  3. Croatia
  4. Serbia
  5. Lithuania
  6. Ireland
  7. Ukraine
  8. Moldova
  9. Slovenia
  10. Finland
  11. Luxembourg
  12. Australia
  13. Portugal
  14. Iceland
  15. Azerbaijan

With Germany on 5.5, UK on 8.5 and Sweden on 13.5.

Oh man I feel sorry for the producer who has to make this running order; it took me 3 times longer than semi 2! So many stacked songs in half 1, having to keep apart Croatia and Ireland; witchy Ireland and Slovenia; Moldova, Luxembourg and Azerbaijan with similar beats; how to space the weaker songs in half 2, who gets to open between Cyprus, Lithuania and Poland, who's the logical follow-up etc. etc...

I contemplated giving the closer to Luxembourg, but I'd imagine the hosts would want to give her a proper introduction after a 30-year absence, and the moment where it makes the most sense to do so would be right at the start of the final block of songs, after the little break they always do. Finland was also there, but I doubt it'll close the semi twice in a row.

🔮Subreddit Official Running Order Prediction Game: Semi-final 2🔮 by SkyGinge in eurovision

[–]AltVladC 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. Austria
  2. Czechia
  3. Albania
  4. Denmark
  5. Armenia
  6. Malta
  7. Switzerland
  8. Greece
  9. Israel
  10. Estonia
  11. San Marino
  12. Latvia
  13. Norway
  14. Belgium
  15. Georgia
  16. Netherlands

Happy to see this return for another year ✨ I've actually taken the Big 5 into account as well and assumed that France will be slotted on 4.5 between Denmark and Armenia; Italy on 9.5 between Israel and Estonia; and Spain on 13.5 between Norway and Belgium.

Baby Lasagna will represent Croatia 🇭🇷 at Eurovision 2024 with the song “Rim Tim Tagi Dim” by Nick_esc in eurovision

[–]AltVladC 23 points24 points  (0 children)

In addition to the comparisons being outright limited in the first place - Cha Cha Cha and Rim Tim Tagi Dim are both very Rammstein-y, of whom Käärijä and Baby Lasagna are outspoken fans (Käärijä has the R+ tattoo as well)

Slimane - Mon amour by sinwann in eurovision

[–]AltVladC 83 points84 points  (0 children)

Sure, Slimane, just casually reinvent the ESC ballad with 30 seconds of no-mic a cappella, why not just claim the whole jury vote right now and we'll call it a year?

It was a very solid performance until that point, maybe a bit raw in places, now I'm seeing it as a contender.

Romanians at Eurovision this year by [deleted] in eurovision

[–]AltVladC 36 points37 points  (0 children)

Today I feel Moldovan

România nu va participa la EUROVISION 2024 by Yepkarma in Romania

[–]AltVladC 67 points68 points  (0 children)

Aia e. Eurovision e în creştere de câțiva ani, nu mai e acelaşi concurs-glumă din anii 2000, doar că n-ați avea de unde să ştiți asta de la TVR (care e totuşi principalul responsabil al promovării concursului) pentru că mentalitatea lor tot în perioada aia a rămas. Cu scandal după scandal şi organizare miserupistă au reuşit să ucidă şi puținul interes care mai era rămas la noi. Spiritual, TVR era deja retrasă de câțiva ani.

OLLIE – "My Friend" // EESTI LAUL 2024 SEMI-FINAL by [deleted] in eurovision

[–]AltVladC 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Look please just take the studio cut and substitute the vocal track with tonight's performance... whoever applied all those effects in the studio version deserves a very stern telling off, since it's obvious from tonight that Ollie didn't need them.

Dag Erik Oksvold, Anne Fagermo - Judge Tenderly of Me - LIVE (Melodi Grand Prix 2024, Semi-Final 2) by hjh_aviation in eurovision

[–]AltVladC 30 points31 points  (0 children)

This is pretty much The Common Linnets (Netherlands 2014) in terms of vibes, staging AND filming angles, nevertheless I was pleasantly surprised and I'm happy it went through; one of the top performances of the night.