After Conan failed to qualify last year many portuguese commented that next year the song that will represent Portugal should not be divisive, a song that the majority of the portuguese people would like and back up and that wouldn't embarrass Portugal in Eurovision.
That song was not “Passe-Partout”(many people didn’t liked the lyrics and Tinoco lacked stage presence), neither it was “Abensonhado”(older people don’t like Jimmy P’s music style nor his way of singing), nor “Movimento”(see “Abensonhado”) and it also wasn’t “Gerbera Amarela do Sul”(a political song, with a drag queen-esque staging), that song is "Medo de Sentir" and that was also what many people thought about “Amar pelos dois” in 2017, who also lost the televote to “
Nova Glória” by “Viva La Diva”(who at the time was seen as the best song to do well in Eurovision by the public).
Elisa’s song is a great winner of Festival da Canção, the first time i heard the studio version it really gave me winner vibes, the lyrics are really beautiful and meaningful and in the future will be seen as one Portugal’s underrated masterpieces of the early 2000s (like “O Jardim”), but the live performance has a lot of problems. Elisa needs to improve her vocals so the live sounds and feels like the studio version and, also like “O Jardim”, the staging needs to tell a story so people who do not speak portuguese understand what is going on.
In a way I’m kinda hopeful, they changed the staging form semi 1 to final(something that nobody else did) so maybe Marta will do the same to Rotterdam, either way I’m not hopeful that Portugal will do well this year but imho there was no song in the final that could qualify to the final.