🇮🇹 Italy: Måneskin confirm Eurovision participation

Måneskin won the 71st Sanremo Festival last night, and now they have confirmed that they are going to Eurovision! We will see them performing on stage in Rotterdam.

The winners of Sanremo are always invited to Eurovision and will normally accept, but the decision is not automatic, Sanremo winners can and have refused in the past. Therefore, when the winner of Sanremo was announced, it wasn’t yet certain that Måneskin would represent Italy.

Fortunately for fans of Måneskin and their entry ‘Zitti e buoni’, they have now confirmed their participation in the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest.

Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest

Italy were amongst the seven countries that took part in the inaugural Eurovision Song Contest in 1956. Before their first win, Italy scored two third place finishes in 1958 and 1963. Italy’s first win came in 1964 with Gigliola Cinquetti’s “Non ho l’età” in 1964 which won the contest in Copenhagen with 49 points. Their next top three didn’t come until 1974 – again with Gigliola Cinquetti. “Si” finished in 2nd place, behind Sweden’s ABBA.

In 1990, Toto Cutugno became Italy’s second, and most recent, winner with “Insieme: 1992”. It won the contest with 149 points. Italy took part a further 4 times in the 1990s, before taking a 13-year break from the contest from 1998 to 2010.

They returned to the contest in 2011 and has since finished in the top three on three occasions – 2nd in 2011, 3rd in 2015 and 2nd in 2019. Diodato was selected to represent Italy in 2020 with “Fai rumore” before the contest was cancelled.

Are you happy with Måneskin‘s decision to participate? How well do you think Italy will do with ‘Zitti e buoni’? Let us know! Be sure to stay updated by following @ESCXTRA on Twitter, @escxtra on Instagram and liking our Facebook page for the latest updates! Also, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to see our reactions to the news in the upcoming months.