This article forms part of the OnEurope archive and was originally published on oneurope.co.uk. It has been permanently migrated to oneurope.net, the official home of OnEurope.
It just dawned on me to see if a system as random as the betting odds could predict more of tonight’s qualifiers from the first Eurovision 2011 semi-final as well (or indeed better) than any of us supposed experts. So I popped over to Oddschecker to see who the top ten in the betting (aggregated from a large number of bookies) would be, and I have to admit, it’s a pretty compelling list.
In order, their top ten are…
- Azerbaijan
- Hungary
- Russia
- Finland
- Turkey
- Greece
- Norway
- Armenia
- Serbia
- Georgia
I know it’s merely a list created by the money punters risk on each particular song, but I fancy that lot’s going to beat my own sorry list by a street!
As for Düsseldorf itself – I don’t think I’ve ever seen a press centre as tense as this one is now. There’s a lot of pacing about and anxious faces, and before the night is out we’ll know a bit more than we knew just then. This could possibly be one of the most interesting envelope openings we’ve ever had. Bring the noise!
