Hello one and all and welcome to On Europe’s inaugural Eurovision Championship, the replacement for this summer’s European Football Championships with a Eurovision twist. With summer starting and with a long while to wait in the lead up to the next attempt to host Eurovision in May 2021, we thought we’d take this opportunity to answer one definitive question once and for all, who is the greatest Eurovision nation of all time? And we’re doing that through an online tournament to be hosted and voted on right here.
Here’s how it’s going to work! In each round, the nations will be represented by songs from their Eurovision past. In the group stages, this will mean their best 1 or 2 entries through history and in the final rounds, it will be entries from the years that best showcase both competing nations. We have automatically qualified all 27 victorious Eurovision nations. The competition will start with five qualifying rounds of five countries each to decide who will progress to the main competition. The groups were seeded based on results at the Eurovision Song Contest. After the qualifying process, the five winners will progress to a group stage where a seeded draw will put the nations into eight groups of four. The top two nations will progress to the last 16 where they will go head-to-head against one other country with the winner qualifying for the quarter finals and the subsequent winner qualifying for the semi finals and the subsequent winner qualifying for the final with the winner of that match crowned the Eurovision champions. There will be three days to vote on each round with the winner to be revealed after all the votes from each round have taken place. Make sense? Fantastic! Let the 2020 Eurovision Championships begin!
We start with Qualifying Group A, two Balkan nations, two Soviet nations and of course, Cyprus, the nation who have now had the most participations without a first victory. Though from the outset, this might look like an easy ride for Cyprus, nobody can discount Serbia & Montenegro’s two high scoring entries or the string of top five results that Croatia achieved during the 1990s. And that’s before we talk about the Georgian ‘Shine’ or the Belorussian ‘Magic’.
Cyprus (Fuego – 2018)
It is perhaps appropriate that Eleni Foureira kicks off the competition with a song from Lisbon that needs no introduction. She’s burning up and she ain’t cooling down and aside from this being a metaphor for Cypriot temperatures, it’s also a note to not underestimate Cyprus in this competition. Cyprus have placed in the top 10 on 10 occasions with a range of different songs in both English and Greek from a variety of genres. Whatever your style is, there’s probably a Cypriot song out there that speaks to you.
Croatia (Neka mi ne Svane – 1998)
Ask any Eurovision fan out there, Danijela gave Eurovision one of its best opening numbers to date when she sang the roof off the NEC in Birmingham with this stonker of a Balkan ballad. Croatia have had some good and bad eras at Eurovision and it can be easy for their songs to get lost in a sea of fantastic Balkan entries in some years. If you are a fan of 90s Eurovision though, you will appreciate what Croatia has given to Eurovision and maybe that will get them your vote.
Georgia (Shine – 2010)
Having watched Oslo 2010 back fairly recently, I can speak positively about the lightness that Sopho Nizharadze brought to this performance. In a year with a lot of pomp and brashness, Georgia’s entry did the simple things well, allowing it to punch above its weight to finish 9th. This is perhaps not the best description of the Georgian style however which has gone from alternative jazz to traditional choirs to indie rock over the years and prides itself on its shameless musical and cultural identity. It’s tricky to know what to expect from a Georgian entry year-on-year but what you do know is that whatever you get, it’s authentic.
Belarus (Work Your Magic – 2007)
Ah Belarus, the nation that is to Eurovision as a 2 am cheap donor kebab is to the world of cuisine. What better way to mark this great nation’s contribution to Eurovision than with Dmitry Koldun’s piece of pop dynamite in Helsinki. It’s greasy, you know it’s not great for you but it’s hard not to love it. We have only ever had six Belarussian entries to have reached the grand final and with the exception of ‘Story of My Life’, they are all slice of cheesy East European pop perfection. Sometimes in life, we all just need something to make us smile and that is definitely a constant expectation of a good Belarussian entry.
Serbia & Montenegro (Lane Moje – 2004)
Serbia & Montenegro only had two cracks at Eurovision but both times they reached the top 10. The highlight of the pair belonged to the magnificent Zeljko Joksimovic who put together a stunning performance on the Istanbul stage. There’s not too much to say about the brief period of Serbia & Montenegro at Eurovision except that they most definitely paved the way for Serbia’s subsequent victory in 2007 and that they finally offered a vital corner of Europe the chance to be part of Europe’s greatest party. Looking for something short, sweet and Balkan, look no further.
Please vote no later than June 18th and on June 19th, we will release the vote for Qualifying Group B and the no holds-barred battle between Iceland, Poland, Armenia, Slovakia & Andorra!