Ukraine The Eurovision Dark Horse
It’s the Eurovision Song Contest tonight and what a difference a week makes. With both Sweden and Croatia surprisingly dumped out in the 2nd semi-final, our ante-post book took a bit of a hit. But all is not lost with many of our other recommendations still very much in contention.
The final piece in the ESC jigsaw was the running order and Azerbaijan now has it all to do from an unfavourable draw, first out of the traps. Denmark, meanwhile, has arisen like a phoenix from the flames, and last up on the night could steal a large chunk of the televote.
We’re still not all that keen on Armenia or Israel despite their late draws. Drawn 19, we rate Romania’s chances of getting into the top 4. Ditto Turkey, drawn 14, and coming after the dire UK song and Georgia ballad.
The most interesting dark horse in tonight’s final is Ukraine. It has a decent enough draw at 17, following the uptempo Albania and Iceland. Alyosha delivered the most stunningly powerful vocal in the 2nd semi-final, and as flagged up by us previously, this tune could prove something of a sleeper hit on the night, because of its emotive lyrics.
We think Germany will either be pushing for victory or completely bomb out on the night. Lena put in a very good performance in the first final rehearsal so there are still grounds to be optimistic.
Germany was also the runaway winner of our poll:
But going into tonight’s final, we would recommend focusing on Turkey, Romania and Ukraine. All three have been tipped up previously by us, but at 80-1 each-way quarter the odds first four with bet365, we think Ukraine is still great value. Or you can just focus on a place bet and take 10-1 with Betfred for Ukraine to finish in the first 4, and 7-4 pretty much across the boards to finish in the top 10.
Rob Furber