Like previous years, ESC COVERS will again share a blog post from Morten Thomassen of OGAE NORWAY with his views on the positions reached by all 35 2026 entries. ESC Covers google translated it from Norwegian to English.

After a year’s break from our beloved competition, our Moldovan friends decided to try their luck again and with their 8th place, they actually became the lowest-placed country of the countries returning to the competition after a few years of absence.

Or, let’s turn to the artist Satoshi and the song “Viva, Moldova” this country’s fourth best placement ever and that’s absolutely nothing to be ashamed of and Vlad Sabajuc, as the artist’s real name is, showed that honoring your own country can be successful in ESC.

Not surprisingly with party songs, it was the audience that saved this happy song, packed full of energy, from a much worse position. They had indeed made it to the final only with the help of the jury, but there they would have ended up in 17th place if only the jury had decided and it has long been the case that the audience has “saved” this country. If only the audience had decided in the final, our friend from Moldova would have ended up in 4th place.

That this song was given the honor of opening semi-final 1 was not surprising, these are the kinds of songs that are needed to get a party started and this is a real party on stage and absolutely everything is done here to keep the tempo and energy at a top level throughout the song and the fact that young Mr. Sabajuc’s voice does not sparkle throughout the song is well weakened by the fact that he oozes charm and presence in the TV slot and at the same time he makes sure to give those present in the hall their share of this charm as well.

However, the song is not strong enough to pull it further up the list, obviously such festive songs should have something fun about them to attract more votes, so this country that has acquired the best positions with songs with spirit and speed will probably wonder if they should go for something similar next year, I think.

Such songs have a habit of winning Moldovan finals, so maybe something completely different would have done the trick for this country?

Featured image – ESC Covers