I enjoyed Italy as it went on but on the evidence of that performance I think it’s now between Croatia, Switzerland and Ukraine Heavy booing for Israel inside the arena, not very subtle editing of the sound
France and Ireland are up there, France is getting a big jury score and Irelands televote will be very big too and the staging and clean vocals are jury friendly
Just not convinced either of them will get enough across both jury and televote Don’t think Joost was at his best but it’s such a fun song and the crowd were so into it I personally have it as Netherlands, Switzerland, Malta, Austria, Czechia, Israel, Greece, Georgia, Estonia, Norway to qualify but I think Armenia and Belgium can be put in place of Czechia and Estonia for the actual result
If the videos I've seen on social media are anything to go by, there was some pretty substantial doctoring going on. Rylan Clark and Scott Mills understandably saying very little on the BBC television commentary too.
Ok just seen it, yeah so his dad died when he was 13 and his mon the year after. He wrote this song for them and that part obviously was important to him.
I knew about his dad dying surprised they chose that as the clip though, I suppose they will have been pretty confident of going through so it would never have made a difference really! Eagerly awaiting the running order now before placing top 10 bets. Probably going to stick a little bit on Portugal as I think they will go down very well with the juries at long odds
EBU have potentially killed Eurovision by not removing Israel. They've shot to 2nd favourite with the bookies. Italian media 'accidentally' revealed their televote for tonight and Israel got 40% of the vote (ahead of Netherlands at about 8%).
They’ve royally ****ed up if that’s an indication of how the voting will go. Been saying to my wife all night that sadly there’s probably a majority who see Israel as the good guys but I didn’t expect them to get 40%
I wouldn't be surprised if they have bought a load of burner phones around europe to buy a win here, bunch of artwashing arseholes.
I’ve lost all enthusiasm for the final after that vote result release from Italy last night. The atmosphere is strange by all accounts, Joost asking ‘why not’ during the press conference when Israel didn’t want to answer a question about other contestants safety and sitting with the Dutch flag covering his head while Eden was being interviewed, Greece pretending to yawn while she spoke also. Belgium’s broadcaster didn’t show the Israel performance which I fully respect. And yet they are now as short as 2/1 in some places. EBU have ****ed up big time and it’s looking like Croatia are everyone’s best bet with the running order now. Funny isn’t it how their stance of being non-political, but then banning any mention of Palestine, people being removed from the arena for showing Palestine flags, doing all they can to shush any mention and then pretend everything is fine by editing out large booing for the crowd has almost turned the whole contest into Israel v anti Israel * rewatched Joost’s performance to try and enthuse myself and I must not have had my tele on loud enough because I didn’t realise just how loud the crowd were! ** Updating my post again Joost didn’t perform at the rehearsal today. Was all sorted in hair and makeup, did the flag parade but is apparently being investigated for something that happened after the semi final. Seems fishy to me
Given the reported voting numbers from Italy, it's not a surprise that there has been sufficient activity to take Israel from 33/1 outsiders less than 24 hours ago to clear second favourites now. If those numbers are typical, then it seems quite probable Israel will win tomorrow night. But if they do, that's when the EBU will have a really serious problem on its hands. Could they really hold Eurovision 2025 in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem given all that has happened in the last few months? Would performers want to take part if it was staged there? And if it was felt Israel couldn't host, would an alternative be as willing to step in as the UK was for Ukraine last year? Right now, I struggle to see positive answers to all of those questions. I have a degree of sympathy for the EBU in the sense that they were always going to get a backlash however they approached the issue of Israel's participation in this year's contest. Their problem at the moment is that they couldn't really have handled it much worse if they'd tried.
