The 2025 edition of the national selection for Eurovision, the Song Festival, is almost here, starting today, live on RTP1, RTP Internacional and RTP Play. And it couldn’t come at a better time. Since January 23, the day all Portuguese songs competing in the selection were released, Portugal has been rising consistently in the betting markets, and at the time of writing this article is the 6th country with the highest level of favoritism to win the Eurovision Song Contest 2025, according to the EurovisionWorld website. And if that wasn’t enough reason to follow this year’s edition of the Festival da Canção, what adds even more hype to this year’s Portuguese participation is the fact that Portugal hasn’t had such a high position in the bookmakers since… Salvador Sobral won the national final in 2017 and, later, Eurovision. However, this fact adds extra pressure to the public and judges of this year’s Festival da Canção, due to the fact that Portugal is such a big favorite, before choosing the song elected to represent the country in next May’s Eurovision, from among the 20 songs that are part of the national selection. Yes, several theories have been created over the last week about which song or songs are creating so much hype around Portugal this year, but there is no absolute certainty at the moment about which is the favorite song of the international public and, mainly, of bettors from all over the world…
JOSH, Henka, Fernando Daniel and Peculiar soon became the preferred artists to represent Portugal in Basel, after their songs were released. Not only are their songs among the most listened to on YouTube and Spotify, but they were also the most commented and shared songs by the vast majority of Eurovision fan groups, spread across various social networks. On the one hand, Fernando Daniel’s favoritism can be explained by the fact that he is one of the most famous male artists in the country, with the greatest commercial success, having previously won the TV program “The Voice Portugal” and currently being a judge on the same program for several editions. On the other hand, JOSH, Henka and Peculiar were completely unknown to most of the Portuguese population until January this year. However, his songs that are competing in the Festival da Canção have received extremely positive reactions among EuroFans.
Starting with JOSH, this artist is not completely unknown to the Portuguese public, as he recently arrived at the The Voice Portugal galas. However, this had not translated into any musical career to date, with the competing song “Tristeza” being the singer’s first single. The singer submitted this song to the Festival da Canção for free submission, being part of the group of 6 songs that were selected in this way, unlike the other 14 composers who were invited by the RTP team. “Tristeza” is perhaps the song that most closely follows what Portugal has been doing at Eurovision recently, and it is also having a huge positive reaction at a European level.
Next up is Henka, the rock-metal artist who is making waves across Europe for presenting a type of song very similar to the song that Ireland represented in the last edition of Eurovision, in Malmo, although this Portuguese song is more accessible in terms of composition than the Irish song, mainly due to its catchier chorus. Furthermore, it is the only song entirely in English to participate in this year’s Festival da Canção. Although it is not very common for Portugal to be represented by a song entirely in English at Eurovision, this has happened once, recently, in 2021, when Black-Mamba took “Love is On My Side” to the international competition, finishing in 12th place in the Grand Final.
Fernando Daniel, as mentioned above, needs no introduction. After winning The Voice Portugal in 2016 and participating with the song “Poema a Dois” in the 2017 Festival da Canção, the year in which he competed as a guest singer against Salvador Sobral and finished in 5th place in the final, Fernando Daniel built one of the most solid music careers in the country, with hits after hits. His return to the “Festival da Canção” as a composer had been expected for a long time, and it was this year that things materialized with the song “Medo”. Yes, Fernando Daniel is one of the favorite artists to win this year’s Festival da Canção due to his legion of fans and the media machine he has working for him! But no, “Medo” is not one of the best songs of his career and it is not the best song at the Festival da Canção this year. Even so, there should be a lot of votes from the public and jury during this edition.
Finally, Peculiar, unknown until then to most of the Portuguese public, performs with the song “Adamastor”, with a very contemporary song and with a brutal staging potential. However, it remains to be seen whether the full potential of the music’s presentation can be materialized on stage. If you can do it, the song will definitely be one of the favorites to win the Festival da Canção. If it doesn’t work out, I still believe that the song can reach Portuguese radio stations. Still, there are a lot of Portuguese sound elements in this song and, therefore, there are a lot of reasons for this song to get a lot of points from the public and the jury, if it manages to have a great performance on stage.
The data has now been released for the start of the Festival da Canção 2025, which begins in a few hours with the first semi-final. And there is a lot of anticipation, especially for this semi-final. Historically, since the renewal of Festival da Canção in 2017, the winner of this national team comes from the first semi-final (Cláudia Pascoal is the only exception, in 2018). Salvador Sobral, Conan Osíris, Black Mamba, Maio, Mimicat and Iolanda, all competed in the Festival da Canção performing in the first semi-final. Of the favorites presented above, two of them are performing tonight, JOSH and Peculiar, as can be seen by the list presented below:
1. Xico Gaiato – “Aí Senhor!”
2. Rita Sampaio – “Voltas“
3. Du Nothing – “Sobre Nós“
4. Marco Rodrigues – “A Minha Casa“
5. Margarida Campelo – “Eu sei que o amor“
6. JOSH – “Tristeza“
7. Capital da Bulgária – “Lisboa“
8. Bluay – “Ninguém“
9. Jéssica Pina – “Calafrio
10. Peculiar – “Adamastor“
Undeniably, the tradition has a strong chance of continuing, due to JOSH’s huge favoritism that has exploded the Internet in recent weeks. Of all the theories regarding Portugal’s favoritism, the safest is that JOSH is the main person responsible for the high expectations for a great result for the country this year in Eurovision. However, will today’s stage performance live up to the hype created around the song? Let’s find out tonight!
