Speaking on the latest episode of The Euro Trip podcast, Portugese hopeful MARO has explained she has been asked to compete in her country’s national selection numerous times, before finally agreeing to take part this year.

In an interview with host James Rowe, he asked how it felt to get the call to compete in 2022.

“Honestly, it happened the last three years, and unfortunately I could never say yes… there was always a problem with the timing. Last year (2021) it was super exciting because I was like ‘yeah I can do it this year actually!'”

MARO is one of the favourites to win this year’s Festival da Canção with her song “saudade, saudade” and qualified from the first semi-final earlier this month.

MARO went on to explain how she wrote the song with her best friend late in 2021, and how it was never written with the competition in mind.

“My Grandad passed away at the end of 2020, and it was kind of awful. It felt very natural to suddenly be writing… we did that song and it wasn’t like ‘this is for the festival’.

“I was really relaxed, when I write something it is always something that is based on a time in my life.”

Festival da Canção concludes this weekend, while Portugal have been drawn to compete in the second half of the first-semi final in Turin, with the show due to take place on 10th May.

Image credit: RTP/Festival da Canção