Portugal PORTUGAL 2025 - Napa - Deslocado

[ESC United Mod Team]

 

[Decayingbooks]

Another snippet from Henka's rehearsals - here -

 

[Decayingbooks]

RTP has revealed the stage of the nf:

It looks remminds me of Karetus staging concept back in 2021...

 

[goncalovieira]

First pic of Josh rehearsal...

Check out this message from @festivaldacancao.rtp

www.instagram.com

There is a metal prop for sure.

 

[lacrymea]

First pic of Josh rehearsal...

Check out this message from @festivaldacancao.rtp

www.instagram.com

There is a metal prop for sure.

Hence sort of confirming the levitation theory

 

[goncalovieira]

Hence sort of confirming the levitation theory

Oh yes... he is wearing a "metal shirt" that should plug into the prop. In the end, camera angles will perform the final effect.

 

[lacrymea]

Oh yes... he is wearing a "metal shirt" that should plug into the prop. In the end, camera angles will perform the final effect.

Yep! Imagine this with smoke...or rain... light effects... I'm hyped to see how it all pans out!

 

[goncalovieira]

Yep! Imagine this with smoke...or rain... light effects... I'm hyped to see how it all pans out!

It will be fantastic.
I do not wanna be delulu, but if the performance gives perfection, we may go to the top 3 of the odds. There is any good male ballad so far in the competion.

 

[BorisBubbles]

Relistened to this wonderful selection as part of my team reviews, and well... Some great stuff here, which sounded even better on relisten.

Peculiar and Emmy Curl are fantastic entries. Fernando Daniel has the best guitar ballad I've heard in several season, Xico and A Cantadeira bring amazing ethnic entries that put the Balkans to shame. HENKA is loads of fun, Lisboa is a beautiful delight, there's definitely enough quality near the top of my ranking that makes FdC narrowly edge out Latvia as the best of the big selections.

Excellent stuff! Emmy / Peculiar / Fernando will go straight to the top of my ranking if they win. Sincerely hope NAPA and JOSH are dodged who are both okay, but just not as good.

 

[DirtyFalcon]

No matter how impressive and emotionnal Josh performance is, it will most likely depend on how his competitors manage to mobilize their fanbases/local support. NAPA seems to have really big commercial success at the moment. I'm quite convinced NAPA will win the televote, especially after seeing their number of streams and engagements on social platforms way higher than any other act this year. They have this really important boost already that will be added to the "organic" votes they might receive from other viewers. If they manage to translate the message of the song well on stage, they could also maybe get the jury support needed to win.

And quite similar for Fernando Daniel but for him i'm not portuguese so i don't know how much relevant he still is today. I have a question for portuguese fans here : Does Fernando have a loyal fanbase like TIX in Norway or Tommy Cash in Estonia ready to push him ? or he's just popular nationally without really a loyal fanbase ? Because it's one thing to be popular in your country but it's another one to have a loyal fanbase ready to push you on a national final even your country have better options. Being popular in your country is not an assurance. He will certainly have a great performance but high enough with the juries ? we don't know yet.
The biggest wildcard and unknown for me remains HENKA. If they manage to pull of a very powerful performance, they could also maybe get important jury support too who knows. I watched Portugal previous voting patterns at Eurovision and it seems that ballads are most of them favored to rock/metal songs.

But yeah for the jury vote, Josh based on the song enough is most likely a jury winner but if NAPA and Fernando Daniel pull of a really good performance, then they could be high enough with the juries as well to be tied with Josh in the end. We don't know yet but i'm really excited by this national final.

 

[Decayingbooks]

I have a question for portuguese fans here : Does Fernando have a loyal fanbase like TIX in Norway or Tommy Cash in Estonia ready to push him ? or he's just popular nationally without really a loyal fanbase ? Because it's one thing to be popular in your country but it's another one to have a loyal fanbase ready to push you on a national final even your country have better options. Being popular in your country is not an assurance.

Portugal has had many mainstream artist in the last years and they kinda flopped in the past, Carolina Deslandes was the closest to winning in 2021, she won the jury vote, but only got a 8 from the televote, but to be fair, her song was a uneventful snorefest, Fernando Daniel song is bland, but it is radio friendly with a memorable hook.
Regarding the numbers of Fernando Daniel, a week after the videos were released he had over 240k plays on youtube, it also was the only lyric video to enter the general trending chart of youtube. But after that initial growth thing slowed down and his daily growth, on average, has been the same as Josh or Henka's. He currently has 329k, in three week he got less than 100k new plays and in the last 3 days the numbers of plays rose by around 2k each day, Peculiar levels of growth, but that can also be due to the studio version video dropping a week ago, which is currently at #6 in youtube's trending for music chart with 130k views.
On the other hand on spotify his song is the third one with most plays of the nf, over 87k, but it hasn't charted in the Daily Songs, currently Napa(#1), Henka(#27), Josh(#30), Bombazine(#94) and Peculiar(#99) are in the chart and Inês Marques Lucas also charted before dropping out of the top100 a couple of days ago.

Answering your question, yes, Fernando Daniel has a loyal fanbase, a very big fanbase and due to the voting for the final opening the Tuesday after semi 2, the fans don't need to actually watch the show to vote for him and he has proved in the past that he can level his fanbase to do just that when he was a mentor in the portuguese version of "The Voice" and "The Voice Kids" and the fact that he is, sort off, a staple of that show means that he may also get a lot of votes from the casual viewers.
He also has a a lot of fans in the portuguese diaspora, I just checked his instagram and he will be performing in Switzerland, US(Boston), France, Luxembourg and Belgium in the next months, although he will have to cancel some of them if he wins the nf...

 

[DirtyFalcon]

Portugal has had many mainstream artist in the last years and they kinda flopped in the past, Carolina Deslandes was the closest to winning in 2021, she won the jury vote, but only got a 8 from the televote, but to be fair, her song was a uneventful snorefest, Fernando Daniel song is bland, but it is radio friendly with a memorable hook.
Regarding the numbers of Fernando Daniel, a week after the videos were released he had over 240k plays on youtube, it also was the only lyric video to enter the general trending chart of youtube. But after that initial growth thing slowed down and his daily growth, on average, has been the same as Josh or Henka's. He currently has 329k, in three week he got less than 100k new plays and in the last 3 days the numbers of plays rose by around 2k each day, Peculiar levels of growth, but that can also be due to the studio version video dropping a week ago, which is currently at #6 in youtube's trending for music chart with 130k views.
On the other hand on spotify his song is the third one with most plays of the nf, over 87k, but it hasn't charted in the Daily Songs, currently Napa(#1), Henka(#27), Josh(#30), Bombazine(#94) and Peculiar(#99) are in the chart and Inês Marques Lucas also charted before dropping out of the top100 a couple of days ago.

Answering your question, yes, Fernando Daniel has a loyal fanbase, a very big fanbase and due to the voting for the final opening the Tuesday after semi 2, the fans don't need to actually watch the show to vote for him and he has proved in the past that he can level his fanbase to do just that when he was a mentor in the portuguese version of "The Voice" and "The Voice Kids" and the fact that he is, sort off, a staple of that show means that he may also get a lot of votes from the casual viewers.
He also has a a lot of fans in the portuguese diaspora, I just checked his instagram and he will be performing in Switzerland, US(Boston), France, Luxembourg and Belgium in the next months, although he will have to cancel some of them if he wins the nf...

What the hell ? really ? This is a serious disadvantage for more unknown artists/bands like Josh or Henka because it gives artists 5 days to the most kown artists to activate and mobilize their fanbase or local support. Josh or Henka would need to get viral to get the same reach. Was it the same system in 2021 with Carolina Deslandes ?

 

[goncalovieira]

What the hell ? really ? This is a serious disadvantage for more unknown artists/bands like Josh or Henka because it gives artists 5 days to the most kown artists to activate and mobilize their fanbase or local support. Josh or Henka would need to get viral to get the same reach. Was it the same system in 2021 with Carolina Deslandes ?

Well, in previous years, big artists had any advantage. I do not see the real chance of NAPA winning. Juries will push them down.

 

[Decayingbooks]

What the hell ? really ? This is a serious disadvantage for more unknown artists/bands like Josh or Henka because it gives artists 5 days to the most kown artists to activate and mobilize their fanbase or local support. Josh or Henka would need to get viral to get the same reach. Was it the same system in 2021 with Carolina Deslandes ?

Same happened with Carolina Deslandes in 2021, Aurea and Syro in 2022, Bárbara Tinoco in 2023, Bispo in 2024... And there's more, Ivandro competed in 2023 and he was the most listened portuguese artist on spotify in 2022... There have been some mainstream artists, with some big fandoms, but what, to me, has been their hurdle has been a lack of ambition to actually win and the fact that the songs they have competed with was just another song in their catalogue, they lacked the wow factor("Medo" included), had Carolina Deslandes competed in 2025 with "Eu Deixei" she would have been the uncontested winner from the start.

It is unknown how well things will go for Fernando Daniel, as I said, growth-wise he is on par with Josh and Henka, and to be fair numbers all across the board are way higher than last year, so it isn't like he is actually flopping. The thing is that he isn't getting the success that a fandom as big as he should have got him, Napa, who where and kinda still are pretty much unknown from the general public are getting that commercial success.

I honestly could go hours trying to figure things out, but I'm at a total loss regarding how the televote will go, although one thing I realized is that we kind of have the same players that we had in 2021, Henka instead of Karetus as a eurofandom favorite that will flop with the judges, Josh instead of Neev as the other eurofandom favorite with a "dedicated" following, Fernando Daniel instead of Carolina Deslandes as the mainstream artist that lost by a hair and Napa instead of Black Mamba, both bands and both dark horses that came out of nowhere.

 

[goncalovieira]

Same happened with Carolina Deslandes in 2021, Aurea and Syro in 2022, Bárbara Tinoco in 2023, Bispo in 2024... And there's more, Ivandro competed in 2023 and he was the most listened portuguese artist on spotify in 2022... There have been some mainstream artists, with some big fandoms, but what, to me, has been their hurdle has been a lack of ambition to actually win and the fact that the songs they have competed with was just another song in their catalogue, they lacked the wow factor("Medo" included), had Carolina Deslandes competed in 2025 with "Eu Deixei" she would have been the uncontested winner from the start.

It is unknown how well things will go for Fernando Daniel, as I said, growth-wise he is on par with Josh and Henka, and to be fair numbers all across the board are way higher than last year, so it isn't like he is actually flopping. The thing is that he isn't getting the success that a fandom as big as he should have got him, Napa, who where and kinda still are pretty much unknown from the general public are getting that commercial success.

I honestly could go hours trying to figure things out, but I'm at a total loss regarding how the televote will go, although one thing I realized is that we kind of have the same players that we had in 2021, Henka instead of Karetus as a eurofandom favorite that will flop with the judges, Josh instead of Neev as the other eurofandom favorite with a "dedicated" following, Fernando Daniel instead of Carolina Deslandes as the mainstream artist that lost by a hair and Napa instead of Black Mamba, both bands and both dark horses that came out of nowhere.

Fernando Daniel wants to win and that is clear. Some other big artists from last years were fine about going to Eurovision but it was not their main goal. My main fear is how he can coordinate his fandom. The Voice Portugal recent winners are average because of them and how organized they can be. About NAPA, it is all about Madeira. Whether they are going to vote in mass or not is unclear. When I saw the stage yesterday, my gut feeling was "Henka is chanceless", but let's see...

 

[Decayingbooks]

Fernando Daniel wants to win and that is clear. Some other big artists from last years were fine about going to Eurovision but it was not their main goal. My main fear is how he can coordinate his fandom. The Voice Portugal recent winners are average because of them and how organized they can be. About NAPA, it is all about Madeira. Whether they are going to vote in mass or not is unclear. When I saw the stage yesterday, my gut feeling was "Henka is chanceless", but let's see...

Winning the televote and winning the nf are not the same thing. I think it most likely that #2 in the televote will be the one winning this year...

 

[i anixi]

Must say I'm really excited about this year's FDC. There are some nice, radio friendly songs (and there is Henka!), but only Josh's Tristeza possesses that dramatic impact capable of producing a winner on stage.
It's a mesmerising song that can never go unnoticed and these things don't come easy and certainly not very often.

If everything goes well and he doesn't disappoint on Saturday, I wouldn't worry about more well known artists' fan bases.
Recent history has taught us that in the end the public votes for the song they like best and that's how it should be.
And let's not forget the jurors, who have been known to give (more than) a little help when the public gets confused

 

[JSSArcos]

It’s difficult to predict the Portuguese jury, but if they stick to the "style" of recent years, Henka and Fernando Daniel will be completely "destroyed". (for your aspirations)

Fernando Daniel is just generic pop, like SYRO (although Fd is much better) . The juries have had no problem ranking more famous artists low, and unless RTP specifically wants to choose Fernando Daniel (which I don’t believe), he has no chance with the jury.

Henka is a bombshell for Portuguese fans, but I don’t see our jury supporting this. They have never voted in favor of rock/metal, so why would they now? Maybe only a well-established band like Moonspell could have some success in this genre. Singing in English and leaning towards commercial metal won’t help, and the stage setup might not be enough for Henka to expand. Honestly, Henka might struggle to qualify for the final based solely on the semi-final jury (the final jury might support it a little more, but not enough).

I still believe there are gems that will get jury support—Diana, Peculiar, Capital de Bulgaria... but they won’t get enough backing from the televote.

Napa is a mystery to me. I don’t think it’s certain they’ll win the televote (Madeira doesn’t win, and if the fandom aligns behind one artist, I can only see Josh achieving that). As for the jury, I honestly don’t know what to think—I don’t see this making the top 3, but it will be close, with a push from the Madeira jury.

Honestly, our jury + televote has been choosing very well! So I trust the "process."

If all the hype around Josh’s staging is confirmed, the fandom will go wild, and if that reaches the non-fan public, Josh has this in the bag! But Saturday, we’ll have a clearer idea.

 

[goncalovieira]

Must say I'm really excited about this year's FDC. There are some nice, radio friendly songs (and there is Henka!), but only Josh's Tristeza possesses that dramatic impact capable of producing a winner on stage.
It's a mesmerising song that can never go unnoticed and these things don't come easy and certainly not very often.

If everything goes well and he doesn't disappoint on Saturday, I wouldn't worry about more well known artists' fan bases.
Recent history has taught us that in the end the public votes for the song they like best and that's how it should be.
And let's not forget the jurors, who have been known to give (more than) a little

It’s difficult to predict the Portuguese jury, but if they stick to the "style" of recent years, Henka and Fernando Daniel will be completely "destroyed". (for your aspirations)

Fernando Daniel is just generic pop, like SYRO (although Fd is much better) . The juries have had no problem ranking more famous artists low, and unless RTP specifically wants to choose Fernando Daniel (which I don’t believe), he has no chance with the jury.

Henka is a bombshell for Portuguese fans, but I don’t see our jury supporting this. They have never voted in favor of rock/metal, so why would they now? Maybe only a well-established band like Moonspell could have some success in this genre. Singing in English and leaning towards commercial metal won’t help, and the stage setup might not be enough for Henka to expand. Honestly, Henka might struggle to qualify for the final based solely on the semi-final jury (the final jury might support it a little more, but not enough).

I still believe there are gems that will get jury support—Diana, Peculiar, Capital de Bulgaria... but they won’t get enough backing from the televote.

Napa is a mystery to me. I don’t think it’s certain they’ll win the televote (Madeira doesn’t win, and if the fandom aligns behind one artist, I can only see Josh achieving that). As for the jury, I honestly don’t know what to think—I don’t see this making the top 3, but it will be close, with a push from the Madeira jury.

Honestly, our jury + televote has been choosing very well! So I trust the "process."

If all the hype around Josh’s staging is confirmed, the fandom will go wild, and if that reaches the non-fan public, Josh has this in the bag! But Saturday, we’ll have a clearer idea.

And we all know... RTP knows how to choose the juries for each edition.
Even though they will not have enough power for the televote, Diana Vilarinho and Capital da Bulgária are candidates to fill the top 5 of the juries. So, after all, I would not be admired if Josh wins the jury, then Diana or Sofia gets #2 and #3. In that case, end of the story for NAPA and Fernando Daniel.
The same guy from RTP who told me days before the song revealed that Salvador Sobral had a charming Disney alike song, sent me a message about the specularity of Josh's performance. Eurovision ready. Seens they working on it before Christmas along RTP.

 

[JSSArcos]

And we all know... RTP knows how to choose the juries for each edition.
Even though they will not have enough power for the televote, Diana Vilarinho and Capital da Bulgária are candidates to fill the top 5 of the juries. So, after all, I would not be admired if Josh wins the jury, then Diana or Sofia gets #2 and #3. In that case, end of the story for NAPA and Fernando Daniel.
The same guy from RTP who told me days before the song revealed that Salvador Sobral had a charming Disney alike song, sent me a message about the specularity of Josh's performance. Eurovision ready. Seens they working on it before Christmas along RTP.

I've always loved certainty and confidence! I sure hope so. In any case, we have to keep our feet on the ground and vote for Josh. Even though he's not 100% my favorite, all my votes will go to him, if he's good live (which I have no doubts about).

 

[goncalovieira]

I've always loved certainty and confidence! I sure hope so. In any case, we have to keep our feet on the ground and vote for Josh. Even though he's not 100% my favorite, all my votes will go to him, if he's good live (which I have no doubts about).

well, I am 98% for Josh. Those nails are a bit too much. However, it is part of his persona.
It is all fine. It will not represent a problem for the public who is willing to give him votes.