Happy Eurovision Day! Tonight it’s time for the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2022, held in Turin, Italy.

In just a few hours, we will find out who will succeed last year’s winner, Måneskin, the band who brought us to Italy by winning last year’s contest in Rotterdam. Who will hold the trophy tonight? Who will host the Eurovision Song Contest 2023? Where will your and our favourites end up on the scoreboard? Exciting questions that we’re all having in our heads in these and the next hours, and we can only speculate about some of them… so let’s do exactly that:

It’s time for our team’s prediction!

The format is simple: Each of the escgo! team members (Martin, Felix and Shi) has 100 points to distribute across the entries depending on how likely they consider them to be tonight’s winner.

And here’s what they think:

Country by running order	Martin	Felix	Shi	TEAM POINTS	VICTORY CHANCE in %
1. Czech Republic
2. Romania
3. Portugal
4. Finland
5. Switzerland
6. France
7. Norway
8. Armenia
9. Italy		1	10	11	3.7%
10. Spain		10	20	30	10%
11. Netherlands
12. Ukraine	100	29	35	164	54.7%
13. Germany
14. Lithuania
15. Azerbaijan
16. Belgium
17. Greece
18. Iceland
19. Moldova		5		5	1.6%
20. Sweden		17	5	22	7.3%
21. Australia
22. United Kingdom		38	30	68	22.7%
23. Poland
24. Serbia
25. Estonia

So what do we expect? Here’s how the team explains their choices:

Shi: Well, well. It always feels hard to guess this, but this year is a very different kind of challenge. While I still don’t think Ukraine will win, I also can’t ignore the possibility of this having a massive televote score, and with its context the jury score is also less predictable. But if it comes down to the usual circumstances of televote and jury, then the UK is my leading candidate, feeling like something that can do extremely well with both juries (for obvious reasons) and with the public. I think Sam is also helped by having that type of personality that really stands out, like quite a few previous winners. Spain is another one that I think will be very high on both sides of the vote. Sweden and Italy are in the mix as they often are, but it feels like more of a mathematical possibility that they will be higher in one set of votes than the other.

Felix: Eurovision was hardly ever easy to predict, but this year, there’s of course a totally new dimension playing a role. One will never be able to find out why someone votes for a specific country, and so there won’t be any profound answer whether Ukraine wins – if it wins – due to the song, or out of empathy. Ukraine being the bookmaker’s and fans’ clear favourite to win the contest is however – in one aspect – not so different to other cases in former or other competitions: There’s always the possibility that enough people will say “it will get votes anyway, so I will vote for something else”. This phenomenon however doesn’t often apply to Eurovision, and it might play a role this time, but it might also be the opposite. I don’t know.
However, I don’t want to dismiss the chance that something else wins, and I went for this route for my prediction. Reason: The UK might not be a clear favourite for the younger fans, but especially for older generations (which I don’t yet count myself into), it is the most classic, melodic pop song in the line-up, instantly enjoyable, and the performance will surely leave an impression, too. I am very much sure that a country with “U” will win, and I actually believe it’s the UK’s turn.

Martin: “Go big or go home”, right? I know my prediction isn’t much fun, but hear me out.
When I put myself in the shoes of a juror, I can’t see a situation where I don’t rank Ukraine highly, either alongside or just behind my absolute favourites. And when I think of my non-hardcore-fan friends who always televote, I can absolutely see them voting for what they actually like and then also throwing a few votes Ukraine’s way too. Add that to the people who actively like or love “Stefania” – of whom there are plenty, because it’s a very decent entry – and those who never normally televote but will make an exception this year to show a bit of solidarity to Ukraine, and suddenly you’ve got a ton of momentum that’s very hard to counteract. If I were throwing a few percent at another country, then maybe Sweden or Italy. I think the UK and Spain will do decently too. Heck, I even think Moldova and Serbia will rock the televote! But actually quantifying any of that in relation to Ukraine’s winning chances? I can’t find a way of doing it.
Of course, for the sake of an interesting voting, I hope I’m completely wrong and my escgo! colleagues above are on the right track instead. Fingers firmly crossed!

Let us know your thoughts in the comments – and have a great Eurovision night!