The final of the 67th Eurovision Song Contest is played this Saturday in Liverpool, UK, with 26 countries including Portugal, with Sweden, Finland and Ukraine being the favorites to win.
26 countries compete, in order of appearance: Austria, Portugal, Switzerland, Poland, Serbia, France, Cyprus, Spain, Sweden, Albania, Italy, Estonia, Finland, Czech Republic, Australia, Belgium, Armenia, Moldova, Ukraine, Norway, Germany, Lithuania, Israel, Slovenia, Croatia and the UK.
Sweden, Finland and Ukraine are the top three favorites to win this year, according to a multi-bookmaker average calculated by the competition’s “website” eurovisionworld.com.
In recent weeks, Sweden, which competes with the ‘Tatu’ theme by Loreen, the singer who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2012 with Euphoria, has always found itself at the top of the players’ preferences.
Portugal is far from the podium. At 6:00 pm on Friday, the Portuguese song “Ai Coração” by Mimicat was ranked 24th. Since the Portuguese representative was chosen at the Festival da Canção in March, Portugal has been ranked between 20th and 26th in players’ preference.
Portugal first took part in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1964, but missed five contests (in 1970, 2000, 2002, 2013 and 2016).
Last year, Ukraine won the Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Stefania” by the Kalush Orchestra.
For this reason, Ukraine was supposed to host this year’s competition, but the war that is devastating the country has led the organization to decide that runner-up Britain will be the host country.
Ukraine’s victory was largely due to the popular vote. The country, which was invaded by Russia a few months ago, garnered a total of 631 votes, 439 of them by public vote.
In 2022, Portugal participated in the Eurovision Song Contest with Maro’s song “Saudade, saudade”, which finished 9th in the contest. In 2017, he won the competition for the first and only time with the song “Amar pelo dois” by Louise Sobral performed by Salvador Sobral.
The final of the Eurovision Song Contest is broadcast live on RTP1 from 20:00 in Lisbon.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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