Like previous years, ESC COVERS will again share a blog post from Morten Thomassen of OGAE NORWAY with his views on the positions reached by all 35 2026 entries. ESC Covers google translated it from Norwegian to English.

There are some countries that are clearly on such a good wave that it seems pretty obvious that they will win soon and of the Nordic countries it is probably Finland that has ridden the highest wave in recent years and from the time Linda and Pete were chosen as this year’s Finnish representatives they were safely in first place on the betting lists and when they closed they were at the top with a 43% chance of winning and countries have won with much lower odds, and lost with better odds even then.

Thus, it perhaps feels most disappointing for our Finnish friends that they “only” finished in 6th place, a position that is the third best position they have ever had and this was their third 6th place, as mentioned.

So the question here is really, how could such a big favorite do so “badly” compared to the result-wise position many thought they would get, they were celebrating the 20th anniversary of their only victory and with Lordi as the halftime act we would have gotten a unique winning picture of the Finnish ESC heroes.

When we watch and listen to the performance, there’s really nothing to fault it for, it’s sung wonderfully, the fiddle is played excellently, the show oozes fire and passion and yes, it oozes ESC winner from everything we see on stage and actually that’s maybe what ruined it for them, because when you have the favorite stamp you expect something big and big you got but, it was big with “old” ESC eyes, it was simply a bit old-fashioned and predictable so when someone with a younger appearance and a younger show took the stage, what our Finnish friends managed to do wasn’t that great after all.

Now, it was true that they weren’t that far up to third place (17 points) so they could have done it more respectably in terms of results, however, I think those who performed the song “Liekinheitin” were disappointed when the final was over, singing in Finnish about a flamethrower didn’t pay off as well as one would have thought, but none of those watching doubted that it was ever about anything with fire, I think.

The Finnish national final has been praised for many years for having songs that stand out and are of great quality, so one can hope that they have now got their blood pumping and really want to bring the ESC scalp home from Bulgaria next year.

Featured image – ESC Covers