31 December 2020

With the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 in Rotterdam cancelled, the intention was not to do the annual battle against Kyiv 2017 – the current champion that has so far won every contest, starting with Stockholm 2016. Without the performances, what can Kyiv truly battle against? I also sensed it would be an easy win too.

Then I thought, it can be straight song vs song, and that could be something interesting. So here are the results. No surprise, yes, Kyiv 2017 won easily by 16 points. That is significant when using the scoring system from boxing. Each country’s song is a round, and the winner gets 10 points with the loser 9. Depending on the superiority of the song, it could be 8 or less. If a country doesn’t have an opponent, I award 1 or -1 based on personal like of the song. It’s that simple.

While Kyiv 2017 was an even year, hence the streak of wins, it does have several shocking entries that can make the battle close. The first four countries are notoriously weak, while San Marino, Slovenia and Spain often see big losses to their opponents. Rotterdam 2020, especially strictly comparing song vs song, Slovenia actually wins the round for Kyiv 2017 while San Marino only loses by 1 point. One country where lack of a performance matters is United Kingdom. Lucie Jones’ Never Give Up On You in 2017 only had moderate appeal until Eurovision itself, and only just beats James Newman’s One Last Breath by 1 point. Had there been a Rotterdam 2020 event, no doubt Kyiv would easily have won that round, possibly by 3 points.

Italy and Moldova were my first and third favourite songs of 2020 so that explains their wins against two of the big fan favourites of 2017. The two point win for Bulgaria is due to them my fourth favourite of 2020 compared to 30th in 2017. Remember, we’re comparing the songs directly. Likely it would be a one point difference if there were performances to compare. Norway were my second favourite and Romania my fifth favourite song of 2020. In 2017 my top 5 were Belgium, Estonia, Romania, Denmark and Greece.

Cheers to a new Eurovision year!

Kyiv 2017 vs Tel Aviv 2019 – The Battle!

Rotterdam 2020 – The Fab Five! All Songs Reviewed and Ranked

Kyiv 2017 – The Fab Five! All Songs Reviewed and Ranked