Eurovision 2008 - Croatia

Romanca
Kraveli Ulice & 75 cents


History (1956 to 2007):

Croatia's previous appearances: 15 year(s) out of 52
Years participated: 1993-
Best result: 4th (1996, 1999)

While never challenging for victory as an independent nation, Croatia is a consistently solid performer at Eurovision - it is the only one of the east European newcomers not to miss a contest due to relegation, managing a continuous run of entries from 1993 to date. Furthermore, Yugoslavia's 1989 winners, Riva, hailed from what is now Croatia, with the 1990 contest held in Zagreb's Vatroslav Lisinki Hall - perhaps we will return there if Croatia ever wins Eurovision under its own flag.

After a dodgy start to its Eurovision career in 1993, Croatia has been in the top ten more often than not, finishing 6th in 1995, 4th in 1996 (after an early lead in the voting), 5th in 1998, 4th in 1999 with the statuesque Doris (though points were retrospectively deducted for using recorded backing vocals), 9th in 2000, and 10th in 2001 - 1997's disappointing 17th place was the only blip in Croatia's form.

The country has slipped a little in the last few years, managing 11th in 2002, 15th in 2003, 13th in 2004 and 11th again in 2005. Nevertheless, the results of the last two years were better than many had expected prior to the Contest.

In 2004, few people rated Ivan Mikulić's chances in the run-up to the Semi Final; consequently, securing a place in the Final, ahead of the more highly fancied Denmark and Finland, was one of the night's big surprises. Indeed, Ivan's 13th place in the Contest proper with 'You are the only one' was nearly good enough to secure direct entry to the 2005 Final; unfortunately, tying on points with Malta with only one place in the Final left, Malta went through by virtue of gaining points from a greater number of countries.

As a result, Croatia once again found itself participating in the Semi Final in 2005, this time with Boris Novković's 'Vukovi umiru sami'; and once again, the country did much better than expected, easily qualifying for the Semi Final with 169 points and 4th place, including high scores from places as unlikely as Austria, Switzerland and Sweden. Unfortunately, despite an enthusiastic performance, Boris was unable to maintain this momentum in the Final, falling behind many of the other qualifying Semi Finalists to finish with 115 points and 11th place. Frustratingly, this meant that for the second year in succession, Croatia fell one place short of directly qualifying for the next year's Final, and was therefore expecting to participate in the Semi Final in 2006. However, with Serbia & Montenegro's late withdrawal freeing up a space in Saturday's show, Croatia benefits from its neighbour's discomfort and secures direct entry to the Final after all - a deserved reward after missing out so narrowly twice in a row.

In 2006 Croatia was reprsented by the folk singer Severina (the one with the sex-tape scandal), and in 2007 by Dragonfly & Dado Topic.


This year's entry:





My opinion & prediction:

What? A romance sanged by an old man? I don’t like this song, I thought Croatia takes Eurovision seriously, but now I changed my opinion.

My prediction for the Semi Final: 16th to 20th
My prediction for the Final: Will not qualify