After just 3 years in the Eurovision Song Contest, the buzz in fan communities around Europe is that Azerbaijan may become the winner of this year’s Eurosong in Oslo. This scenario does not look impossible, especially given the following that Safura, Azerbaijan’s entry to the ESC 2010, has already created among the Eurovision public and the stunning team of professionals involved in her Eurovision bid.

Azerbaijan debuted at Eurovision in 2008 with the vibrant and controversial angel-and-demon duet of Elnur and Samir. The duet’s act was an elaborate show that included wine-splashing over the dancers, blowing-up the demon’s throne and opening the angel’s huge white wings. All this to accompany Day After Day, a catchy song describing the epic eternal fight between good and evil. Elnur and Samir finished on the 8th place among over 40 contestants, a very decent result for the first-timers.

Right from its Eurovision onset, Azerbaijan invited professionals to run the show. The Ukrainian Euromedia and Luxen companies won the tender to manage the Azerbaijani preparation for the ESC, and have been doing so ever since. These agencies are quite well-known in the Eurovision world, in the first place, for their work with Ruslana, the Ukrainian Eurovision winner, who made a spectacular breakthrough in the Contest in Turkey in 2004.

The Land of Fire seemed determined to be a show stopper. Last year in Moscow, Azerbaijan’s hot couple of AySel & Arash with their song Always sensationally finished 3rd in the Contest final.

While Norway’s Alexandr Rybak was an all-time favourite and projected Eurovision winner long before Eurovision, AySel & Arash put up a real battle for the 2nd place and, with Eurovision fans holding their breath, for a few moments stole it from Iceland’s Yohanna during the Final vote count. Although they did not win the Contest, AySel & Arash certainly became national heroes in Azerbaijan. They instilled a sense of undying confidence in a country that just recently had had almost no established show business beyond wedding concert shows by local artists.

The Azerbaijani people have certainly been grateful. The Eurovision Song Contest has become a national sport, gaining unprecedented, never-before-seen popularity and following in the country. Azerbaijan’s newly-found show biz knack and confidence shines through the grand effort the country has been doing for its 3rd bid in Eurovision, this time with Safura.

Never before had the Land of Fire been so blatantly tipped to win Eurovision. The odds have been in Safura’s favour already in early March, when a host of British bidding websites predicted her as the next winner of the Eurovision Song Contest. Interestingly, this was even before her song for the Contest – Drip Drop – was announced. Now with Drip Drop playing across Europe, Safura’s chances seem to have only gone up.

In addition to that, Safura’s Eurovision preparation team is full of international celebrity names, beginning with the renowned Swedish producer Anders Bagge, at whose studio Drip Drop was recorded. Film director Rupert Wainwright and choreographer JaQuel Knight are other two legends whose involvement is a guarantee of a high-quality product and considerable additional international attention. And this is what Safura needs now to win Eurovision. Given a big enough audience, she has everything else to win the hearts of this audience.

Azerbaijan’s Eurovision effort clearly places it among the leaders of the latest trend to approach the Contest more seriously and elevate its status across the board. The country has quite successfully used Eurovision to springboard its own show business from obscurity into the international spotlight and bring it up to the level of European standards. If Azerbaijan manages to produce a Eurovision winner this year, this may just give it enough boost to begin to vigorously pursue its cultural agenda on the competitive European cultural marketplace.