Odds Review #9: Week Ending 03/03

The Penultimate week of national final season has come and gone as the market really starts to heat up. Cyprus, Austria, The UK, Switzerland and The Netherlands all revealed their internal selections this past week with Switzerland faring the best so far being matched under 20s whilst the Netherlands bounced to 600+ before re-entering the 30s. It has been that kind of week as we’ll come on to. Full thoughts on all of these are on site except for The Netherlands who I’ll aim to address tomorrow.

Much of the week was dominated by Iceland with big moves down into the 6s in anticipation of Bashar Murad winning there and his story already being picked up outside of the bubble. In the end, Iceland either didn’t really care that much or anti-voted him out in the superfinal with Hera Bjork- probably a combination of both. Following a brief dash to 600, Iceland have been matched again in the 30s in the hope RUV get Hera to step aside I assume or find some actual irregularities (5% chance of that happening?). Current odds look optimistic to say the least. Serbia however did select their act with the most potential with Teya Dora winning pze with a jury win and televote 2nd place, they remain 100+ on the market.

Elsewhere Sweden’s Semi 5 of melfest gave the first showing of expected winners Marcus and Martinus. They are on their way to the high 20s now to do a double but a solid result should be expected for Sweden unless Saucedo sneaks through somehow. The only other ongoing selection in Portugal is not helping their cause much.

Next week we have the Greek entry released for which I have relatively high expectations whilst we also get the name and probably the song for Australia too. Israel’s participation has cleared the EBUs objections and they are now as certain as possible given the circumstances to make it to Malmo. Their entry ‘Hurricane’ is the last one pencilled in to be released for next Sunday.

That leaves the three Caucasus countries in their annual standoff over who releases last. Armenia’s plans are the hardest to guess right now with uncertainty over where they are in the process.

And finally this week saw Croatia leapfrog Ukraine into favouritism giving our 3rd different country to sustain that as captured here (with Israel holding that title before the new year).