The finish line: The rise of “Fuego”
Rehearsals began on Sunday, April 29 in Lisbon’s Altice Arena, and Netta closed the afternoon session with her first rehearsal. That is when the press discovered the Japanese-themed staging (with the outfit and the Maneki-Nekos), which already sparked a small debate about cultural appropriation. The issue was not extensively debated at the time, though. With all the staging concepts being revealed hour by hour during that week, there was so much to talk about, that it did not felt particularly big.
Netta’s vocals were good, as our people in the press centre reported, and she was seemingly turning into the unassailable favourite. Later in the day, Bulgaria (the main challenger at the time) had also rehearsed, but odds started drifting and the overall package was not as convincing as some people had hoped. Mikolas Josef from Czechia also had a spot that day, and despite a good rehearsal, “Lie to me” also started drifting (although it would remain in the top 5 for the entire first week).
Then came the second day, and the rise of the biggest challenger: Cyprus.
“Fuego” – Keep taking me higher
On April 28, the last day in our table from earlier, Cyprus was 17th in the odds, with odds varying widely between 70/1 and 50/1. Israel, at the top, had odds at 3/2.
On April 30, Cyprus rehearsed for the first time, closing the second day of rehearsals, being the closer of the first semi-final. And as we said in our article at the time, it set Lisbon on fire.
Suddenly, a song that most fans had considered to be a “good but generic mediterranean dance track” during the season, turned into the most serious challenger to “Toy”, and a real fan-favourite among a sizeable portion of the fandom.
Bookmakers reacted accordingly: Cyprus rose to the top 10, and kept shortening. With the following days, the discourse around an “Israel-Cyprus” duel started to get traction within the fandom, although Estonia, Norway (represented by the 2009 champion Alexander Rybak) and France still had good rehearsals and positions. At the beginning of Eurovision week, Israel, Estonia and Norway were in the top 3. The situation changed rapidly.
A duel set in the semi-final
The first semi-final of 2018, on May 8, was “objectively” the strongest: Israel, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia and Bulgaria were all taking part. The live performances of the jury and public shows would define the trends for the rest of the week.
During and after the jury show of May 7, Cyprus’ odds shortened more and more, while Israel’s started to drift. Shortly after midnight, “Fuego” had already overtaken “Toy” with several bookmakers. By the time the public show started, bookmakers had their new favourite, and so did many Eurovision fans.
During the show itself, Israel performed in the 7th position, and Cyprus closed the evening in the 19th slot (yes, there was a time with up to 19 semi-finalists in the same semi-final…).
Compared to the two previous winner, “Toy” started its performance with a succession of quick shots, centred on Netta’s face, as she sang the first section of looped vocals of the song. In reality though, Israel was not allowed to use an actual voice looper on stage: according to the EBU, it fell into the category of live instruments, which are forbidden. This came up during the press conference that followed Israel’s second rehearsal, and was apparently communicated to the delegation after a previous authorization by the EBU according to sources at the time (which confirmed that the EBU had allowed its use at first). The vocal loops were actually performed live by backing vocalists, and the looping table at the centre of the stage was more of a light props.
The performance was energetic, “anthemic” of sorts, with the help of dancers and backing vocalists, and concluded with a strong raw vocal moment on the lower part of the main stage. “Toy” had not disappointed. But the new bookmaker’s favourite was yet to perform.
Cyprus closed the show, for good reasons. Walking on stage in front of blue laser projections in the smoke, Eleni Foureira brought fire to the Altice Arena. First performing on her own, she was joined before the first chorus by four dancers. The rest is history: hair flips, dance breaks, red lights (and, if you look at the colours, sort of a cotton-candy haze) and pyros. A very good vocal performance with a very physical choreography, with camera angles alternating between fixed front shots of the five performers or of Eleni, and moving shots orbiting the stage.
Both songs obviously qualified, Cyprus being the third to be announced, and Israel the fifth. Days later, detailed results of both semi-finals were released, and it was discovered that “Toy” had won the jury vote, and “Fuego” the public vote. Already at the time, that pattern of “jury’s favourite vs people’s favourite” started to appear, although hidden within the qualifying shows. The results of the final did not repeat that pattern, though.
The road to the final
Right after the show, the favourites that had performed saw their odds drift slightly, a natural occurrence after a first semi-final: France and Norway, from the second semi-final, shortened in reaction, with Norway overtaking Israel to take the second place between the two shows. The second semi-final, however, had them drift again to lower positions. Ireland and Germany shortened, but the true competition was, for most people, between “Fuego” and “Toy”, with Eleni still in the lead.
Cyprus’ new status as a favourite was taken very seriously by fans and broadcasters, with the CyBC director general even confirming that Cyprus was ready to host in case of a victory. The announcement of the running order of the final reinforced this idea, with Cyprus set to perform in slot #25 out of 26, with Israel a few spots behind, in slot #22. These were very good positions for both, towards the end of the show.
The final jury votes – the Austrian surprise
The final was held on May 12th. After an eventful evening (which included a stage invasion during the UK’s performance in the first half of the show), the jury voting sequence started. Many fans had doubts over the jury potential of “Fuego”, some (not as many) also had doubts about “Toy” too, so the way juries would rate them could turn the balance in the favour of one or the other, or even clear a path for a shock winner like Germany, which started to look like a dark horse.
That sequence was much more exciting than the 2017 one.
After a dozen juries had voted, a top 5 had slowly started to separate from the pack, with Israel in the lead, followed by a close group with Sweden, Austria, Germany and Cyprus. Austria had just earned 12 points from the 12th jury, the UK, and had already voted: since they could not vote for themselves, they were potentially “behind”, having received votes from one less juries than the other four. By the 22nd jury, just before a small break, Israel and Austria had separated from this top pack, with only 8 points between them.
After the 32nd jury, Greece, had given 12 points to Cyprus, Austria was still in the lead, and Israel back to the lower parts of the top 5, along with Germany and Cyprus. At this point, from this top 5, only Israel and Germany had yet to give their points, so winning the jury votes with a sizeable lead was becoming increasingly unlikely for both.
In the end, Austria had slowly built a jury victory, with a lead of 18 points over Sweden (271 to 253). Israel was 3rd with 212 points, and Cyprus 5th, with 183 points. Both were well behind the leaders, but victory was not out of reach.
More generally, the jury points were spread more “evenly” that they had been in 2017, and so were the twelve points. Cyprus actually earned one more top rate than Israel did (6 against 5), showcasing a more contrasted reception by the jurors.
Austria’s victory in this sequence came as a surprise to most fans, and with the small margin between the two pre-show favourites, it made the final result more mysterious than most fans thought. An Austrian or Swedish victory remained unlikely though, so the televote was going to decide everything. A televote which had gone in Cyprus’ favour during the semi-final, with Israel in 4th position, although nobody knew it at the time.
A televote flip for “Toy”
Yet during the final, Israel ended up winning the public vote: 317 points to 253. A closer analysis of the figures showed that “Toy” enjoyed both a greater support from countries voting in the second semi-final, and an improvement of its scores from the first semi-finalists.
Indeed, on the Tuesday show, out of twenty countries able to vote for both Israel and Cyprus, only six had ranked Israel above Cyprus in the televote. During the final, four more had been flipped (Austria, Belgium, Ireland and Sweden), making it ten, while a few had closer results than in the semi-final. Croatia, for example, had given 12 points to Cyprus and none to Israel in the semi ; in the final, it gave Cyprus 8 points, and Israel 6, making the difference much smaller.
And out of the twenty-one countries of the second semi-final (including the automatic qualifiers), sixteen put Israel above Cyprus in the final’s televote. This was enough to flip the trend and end up above Cyprus, with a difference of 64 points. Being above Cyprus in both votes, it would mathematically be in the same situation in the total votes. But it still needed to overcome Sweden and Austria to get to the trophy.
Moment of victory
The televote, for the last time, was announced in the order of the televote ranking. This meant that the audience quickly realised that it would be a fight between “Toy” and “Fuego”. Sweden, the jury runner-up, was the fourth country to be announced, with only 21 points. Later on, Austria was the 14th country announced, with 71 points. As we reached the top four, Czechia then Italy were announced, although none managed to go above Austria. With two countries left, the duel was clear.
And, as you can see by using the slider above, the final reveal was much more tense than in 2017, with a probability for both songs to win. In Kyiv, the highest-ranked remaining entry, Portugal, was still in the lead, and more than a 100 points ahead of the other song. In Lisbon, in comparison, Israel had seven countries above it in the scoreboard (which was one more than Bulgaria in 2017), and was only 29 points ahead of Cyprus. The points, in general, were spread more evenly: Austria, which ended up in third place eventually, had fewer points in total than Portugal had gotten from only the juries in 2017.
The situation of the next announcement, however, was similar, with the addition of Austria in the split screen. In reality, with 570 points left to distribute, Austria had already missed on victory (even if Israel and Cyprus had tied for 285 points each, they would have both still placed above Austria). Even without these precise maths in mind, Eurovision fans knew there were too many points left.
The hosts did not take too long to reveal the country that had placed second in the televote, announcing the score (253 points) only a few seconds before announcing “Cyprus”. Technically, had Israel received these 253 points instead, Cyprus would have won with 500 points, ahead of Israel’s hypothetical 465 points. But Cyprus was second, and just like in 2017, it meant the last country left to be announced, the televote winner, had won the contest.
Netta was escorted to the stage by her delegation, walking slowly enough that her props were already in place when she arrived. She received the trophy from Salvador Sobral: in quite an ironic twist of fate, the artist who had decried “fast food music” and “fireworks” handed the trophy to one of the most bombastic entry of the 2018 edition.
Asked for a few words, Netta thanked the audience, and unbeknownst to her, gave birth to a Eurovision meme:
I’m so happy! Thank you so much for choosing different! Thank you so much for accepting differences between us! Thank you for celebrating diversity! Thank you!
Netta’s words after her 2018 victory
I love my country, next time in Jerusalem!
In case you don’t know, starting from this date, and every year, Netta has systematically tried to predict the host city of the upcoming edition of Eurovision, and she has systematically been mistaken: Eurovision 2019 was held in Tel-Aviv. Her following predictions were Amsterdam for 2020 (instead of Rotterdam), Rome for 2022 (Turin), Manchester for 2023 (Liverpool), Stockholm for 2024 (Malmö) and lately, Geneva for 2025 (instead of Basel).
And that was the road to victory for “Toy”: a clear season favourite, whose wings almost got burnt in the final flight towards final victory. More than the story of “Toy”, it is the story of “Fuego”, which had a stronger impact on our Eurovision community. “Fuego” truly kicked off the recent trend of a “challenger” to the “favourite”, which had later been used for other contests, such as 2023 (with Sweden and Finland) and 2024 (with Switzerland and Croatia). It is a concept closely related to, but not completely overlapping with, the idea of “the jury’s favourite” vs “the people’s favourite” (which also appeared before, in 2015).
“Fuego” also became the reference of a certain type of entries, in terms of production and performance: female dance tracks, with a mediterranean sound, and a strong dance break. Many songs have been described as “Fuego-like” in the years that followed, including many of Cyprus’ own songs.
Yet in the end, “Toy” won, comfortably, but without a landslide. Its numbers were very similar to those of “1944” from two years prior, scoring even fewer points in totals. And the contest went, for the first time in 20 years, to Israel: not to Jerusalem (which had turned into a political choice that would likely bring the contest into disrepute), but to Tel-Aviv. There, another season favourite would win the contest, with much more difficulties than expected.
My memories of this victory
2018 was the third edition I followed, and the first I reported on, as part of the ESCXTRA team.
Although Israel had been the clear favourite for the entire season, the rise of “Fuego” in the final two weeks made it feel like everything was possible for the final. I lacked a strong personal favourite that year (my Facebook feed says Estonia was my favourite, but that was in March…), but I ended up in a few bandwagons: the “Fuego” one, out of the good old “rooting for the underdog” mindset, but also the “Mercy” one. I was convinced that we, France, had a reasonable shot at victory. I was convinced that the wave of arms and hands for the “Merci Mercy!” part would have a strong enough impact. I distinctly remember the first jury, Ukraine, giving us 12 points, and thinking “That’s a good start, the hope is real.”
In the end, it remained a fight between Cyprus and Israel, and although I really liked “Toy”, I felt like we had missed an opportunity to witness history. Another time, perhaps.
Did you follow the contest back in 2018? What are your memories of this experience, and of Netta’s path to Eurovision victory? Tell us more in the comments below or on social media, at @escxtra! And be sure to check us again next week, to read about the victory of “Arcade” in Tel-Aviv, and how what seemed like an obvious victory was much tighter than expected.
