The ongoing deliberation process on the pipeline project to be selected for shipping the Shah Deniz 2 gas to the European market has proved quite eventful: the familiar contenders in the Southern Corridor (Nabucco, TAP, ITGI) lost ground in favor of two latecomers (TANAP and SEEP). Conspicuously, the recent selection by the Nabucco consortium of a scaled-down version (‘Nabucco West’) epitomizes the saga of an ill-planned and poorly supported project of geopolitical ambitions. The present paper discusses why Nabucco has failed, and argues that the Southern Corridor can still save the day, albeit with significantly less strategic clout than initially envisioned.