The road to Liverpool: Käärijä-mania
The state of the odds
Two days before Loreen performed “Tattoo” for the first time in Malmö, the traditional excerpt published by Swedish broadcaster STV on Thursday had already put Sweden at the top of the bookmakers’ ranking. Loreen’s victory just confirmed this position, which never changed: Sweden remained the favourite.
We once again checked the rankings of bookmakers at four different moments of the 2023 season, this time opting for the day after the Melodifestivalen heat instead of the day after the final to start our list. This gives a slightly different outlook of how things looked like before the last super Saturdays of the season. We thus checked the odds:
- On February 26, a day after Loreen’s first performance in Melodifestivalen and after UMK
- On March 17, a day after the last 2023 song was released
- On April 8, a day after PrePartyES 2023
- On April 29, a day before the beginning of rehearsals
| Position | February 26 | March 17 | April 8 | April 29 |
| 1st | 🇸🇪 Sweden | 🇸🇪 Sweden | 🇸🇪 Sweden | 🇸🇪 Sweden |
| 2nd | 🇺🇦 Ukraine | 🇫🇮 Finland | 🇫🇮 Finland | 🇫🇮 Finland |
| 3rd | 🇫🇮 Finland | 🇺🇦 Ukraine | 🇺🇦 Ukraine | 🇺🇦 Ukraine |
| 4th | 🇳🇴 Norway | 🇳🇴 Norway | 🇳🇴 Norway | 🇫🇷 France |
| 5th | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | 🇮🇱 Israel | 🇪🇸 Spain | 🇪🇸 Spain |
| 🇸🇪 Sweden | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st |
As you can see, as the selection season ended and the promotion season started, a clear top 4 had appeared: Sweden, Finland, Ukraine, and Norway. Let us not delve too deep on Ukraine’s chances, which were slim, and mainly boosted by their co-hosting of the 2023 contest in the UK (where most of the bookmakers are located), as well as the 2022 landslide which some believed could be repeated. It eventually did not happen again, despite very good televote results in 2023, and even later in 2024.
Instead, let us focus on Sweden’s nordic neighbours: Norway, but especially Finland.
🇳🇴 Norway — The other Queen in the North
In 2023, Norwegian broadcaster NRK changed, again, the format of their national selection. From 2015 to 2019, it had been a single show, with some form of “superfinal” round or rounds. Between 2020 and 2022, it had reintroduced heats, with a special “duel” format: four songs performed as two duels, and the winners of each duel performed against each other to determine the single qualifier to the final. These were joined by a few automatic qualifiers hand-picked by the organisers.
2023 kept the heats, reducing their numbers to three, and discarded the duels and the automatic qualifiers. Instead, it was a much simpler case of selecting three songs out of seven in each show, with nine entries making it to the final. Songs were revealed early in the morning of the Monday before each Saturday heat.
The song that opened the first heat, on January 13, was “Queen of Kings” by Alessandra Mele. It had already caught the attention of fans and Norwegians throughout the week, after its Monday reveal. It was anthemic, it was catchy, it was about female empowerment. It became the favourite to win the selection.
It qualified to the final. Two years later, we now realise that Alessandra did so along with two other Norwegian representatives and Melodi Grand Prix winners: Ulrikke Brandstorp, with “Honestly”, who had won MGP in 2020, and Unami Tsunami, with “Geronimo”, a band that included Kyle Alessandro, the 2025 representative and MGP winner.
Three weeks later, Alessandra closed the final in Trondheim, and won both the jury and the public votes, ending up almost a hundred points ahead of the runner-up, Ulrikke.
The song ticked many boxes for a top Eurovision entry, while keeping some very Norwegian elements, with rhythms and melodies close to traditional sea shanties. “Queen of Kings” gained traction on social media, including TikTok, and also gained an Italian version during the promotion season, due to Alessandra’s Italian origins.
Despite these good signs, the odds for Norway slowly drifted during the promotion season, from 10-12/1 to 12-16/1 on average, which pushed the song out of the Top 5. It was clearly a good song for the televote, but another one was ready to sweep these points ahead of Norway: their fellow Nordic, Finland.
🇫🇮 Finland — The Green Goblin of UMK
Whereas Norway’s MGP was finding a new format to select a Eurovision entry, Finland’s UMK had already found a good formula in 2020: seven artists, one show, and enough marketing and brand management to make sure anyone taking part would benefit at least on the domestic music market, regardless of their final result.
The UMK class of 2023 is considered by some to be the strongest selection of the season, and perhaps the strongest selection in Finnish history. The brand had found new success, with people like Robin Packalen (who had been a teenage star in the 2010s and still retained many fans) in the line-up, exactly the sort of profile that the UMK brand may not have been able to attract a few years earlier.
But the act that caught the most attention was someone less famous: Käärijä, and his song “Cha Cha Cha”.
The fifth song out of seven to be releaesed, on January 17, it quickly became a favourite. It was a creative “party metal” song, with a catchy chorus and a lyrical hook that was easy to remember. The transition from the metal part to the dance part added something special: a mix of genres that still felt coherent and kept an identity of its own.
A month later, UMK took place on February 25, the same evening as Melodifestivalen’s fourth heat, when Loreen performed “Tattoo” for the first time. This was actually mentioned during the Finnish show itself, by the Swedish-language commentator. At 20:32, Käärijä performed “Cha Cha Cha”. Fifteen minutes later, Loreen started her first performance of “Tattoo”, making many fans switch from YLE to SVT online, missing the performance of Benjamin’s “Hoida Mut”. But the scheduling gods had been kind enough to separate two of the most anticipated performances of the selection season.
Loreen qualified directly to the Melodifestivalen final during the last performance of UMK’s lineup. Then, at around 21:30, the jury votes were announced in Finland. “Cha Cha Cha” gained the most points from the international juries, with 72 points. Then came the televote, counting for 75% of the total score, and which was won by a landslide by Käärijä, with more than 50% of the votes.
Just like Loreen, Käärijä did not actually beat the record of points in the format used at the time: in 2021, Blind Channel had received 479 points from the public (and 72 from the juries too), slightly more than the 467 points for Käärijä.
The rise of a fan-favourite
Slowly, but surely, the nordic duel of Finland and Sweden made its way into the mindset of the fandom. “Tattoo” was clearly the favourite to win, but there was a growing sense that “Cha Cha Cha” could become “the people’s favourite”, the challenger to Sweden.
Challenging Sweden was not just a question of challenging the top contender: it was also about challenging Sweden itself, challenging Melodifestivalen and its recipe. A fun entry, taking risks, contending with a perfectly-crafted pop song by a previous winner, with an all-star team of producers and songwriters behind the project.
But “Cha Cha Cha” was not the only thing boosting Finland’s favours with the fan community. Käärijä was a 29-year-old man, and easily got along with the younger members of the “Eurovision class of 2023”. His best PR agent was probably the Slovenian band Joker Out, and especially their frontman Bojan Cvjetićanin (who produced a few pieces of social media content with Käärijä, crafting an image of “bromance” between both singers). The band frequently sang “Cha Cha Cha” in their own social media posts and videos, as they did in their Carpe Diem series, their diary of the song creation and of its promotion (the video below is set to start at the right moment to check their covers).
Käärijä did not stop at these though: he also promoted “Cha Cha Cha” through Fortnite, with the help of Warner Music Finland.
Compared to Käärijä, Loreen was an older, much less social-media-inclined participant. Despite being a champion and a returning entrant, she was and remains someone who enjoys calm more than constant attention. She was not completely absent from the social media frenzy of the promotion season, but she was not at the forefront. For the younger, social-media-savvy segments of the fan community, this was sometimes seen as standoffish. The fun, risky entrant was visible, looked likeable, and socialised with the rest of the artists, while the “official” favourite was barely there.
This is in no way a criticism on our part: each artist has a different affinity to the many elements of public life, which can vary with time and context. And objectively, it is hard to say if the heavy representation of Käärijä during the promotion season impacted the final results in any way. But it impacted the way this fan community has received both entries, and it fed the narrative of a “people’s favourite” going against a more classic kind of favourite in the competition.
At the end of the promotion season, Sweden remained the favourite in the odds, with Finland behind as the main contender. And both were due to perform in the same semi-final, ready to open the contest.
The finish line: Nordic duel in Liverpool
Fully closed rehearsals
In 2022, journalists present during the first week of Eurovision were only allowed to watch the second rehearsals of each country in the press centre. In 2023, the new rules in place also closed these second rehearsals to the press, and only revealed the footage as a compilation video of each day of second rehearsals.
Despite limited access, we already knew that Loreen’s staging would have to be scaled down for Liverpool. The giant, 4x4m LED screens over and below her were too big for the M&S Bank Arena stage. The pictures of the first rehearsal, and the extracts revealed after the second one, showed to what extent: the screens were smaller, the standing area higher above the floor, and the atmosphere was less smoky. You can see the difference between these from two pictures: one from the Melodifestivalen final rehearsal, one from the first Eurovision rehearsal of “Tattoo”.
By May 6, the last day of rehearsals, Finland had overtaken Sweden in the much-used MyEurovisionScoreboard app. The duel was set.
The semi-finals
The first semi-final took place on May 9. The night before, the audience of the evening preview (formerly called the “jury show”, the second dress rehearsal but the first open to a live, paying audience) had clearly been impressed by Finland’s performance. Käärijä was the favourite of more than 40% of the interviewed audience members, with Loreen second with 15%, and Alessandra in third position with almost 10%. A Nordic clean sweep. Finland had also won the Monday’s press poll, although the scores were much closer, due to the fact that journalists were asked to name their three favourite acts of the first dress rehearsal (opened only to the press), while audience members were asked for their one favourite act.
On May 9 itself, just as in the rehearsals, Norway opened the night. As the night moved along, Sweden’s turn arrived, in slot #11. This was a perfect placement during the night: right after a commercial break, and in the exact same spot occupied by “Euphoria” in its 2012 semi-final.
The performance was similar to the Melodifestivalen one, with similar camera shots and angles, similar colours, although the atmosphere was less smoky in Liverpool. The structure around Loreen was indeed smaller, but this was only an issue for people familiar with the original, Swedish staging. In reality, this remained a very efficient and evocative act, that was likely going to storm the jury vote.
But in 2023, the semi-finals changed after the 2022 voting scandal involving six national juries. Since then, qualifiers have been selected by televote only. And Finland, closing the show in slot #16 (just one position away from Lordi’s #17 in the 2006 semi-final), was a much more likely candidate.
Compared to “Tattoo”, it seemed that the staging of “Cha Cha Cha” had gotten bigger on the Eurovision stage. Instead of being surrounded by pallets, Käärijäa started inside a wooden box, and exited on top of it, a metaphor of the “icy shell” melting in the lyrics. The addition of the giant shadow behind him, and the devilish shadow tongue, were very memorable, and as the cameras and audience’s gaze were focused on this, dancers dressed in bright-pink costumes got inside the box, exited it from the front.
The pallets were a Finnish joke: these were European-standard pallets, called “eurolava” in Finnish, with “lava” also meaning “stage” or “platform”. As he descended on the Eurovision stage, Käärija was walking down smaller “euro-stages”.
As the song transitioned to its dance section, the colours turned rainbow and the dancers danced along with Käärijä on the main and the secondary stage, in a very vivid, bright atmosphere. Vocals were not perfect, but not terrible either, and the package was strong. It was a strong contrast to the darker and much more controlled Swedish staging.
Both countries qualified, with Finland being announced fourth (prompting Käärijä to drop the top he was wearing) and Sweden, eighth, both by Hannah Waddingham. The qualifiers’ announcement took place in a traditional manner, after strong backlash had pushed the organisers to scrap a new system of announcement, which would have put all the artists on stage during the event.
As we later learnt, Finland had won the televote and thus the semi-final, with seven sets of 12 points out of a possible eighteen (15 semi-finalists, 3 automatic qualifiers, the new Rest of the World vote, minus Finland itself) and a total of 177 points. Sweden was just below, in second position, with 135 points including two sets of 12. Norway was only sixth.
Afterwards, both favourites drew first half slots during the qualifiers’ press conference. This was not ideal for either, but both being in it meant none had a comparative advantage, although “Tattoo” was closer to the deep atmospheric kind of ballad that would usually do well from the first half.
The 2023 Grand Final
When the dress rehearsals came for the final, Sweden had overtaken Finland in the press poll, but Käärijäa was still the favourite for the live audience of the jury show, with almost a third of the close to 4,000 interviewed spectators choosing him over the rest of the line-up.
The running order was back into a more familiar territory in Liverpool, with both favourites being given good spots. Loreen, in position #9, was close to the historic winning slots of several songs like “Rise Like A Phoenix” (#11), “Heroes” (#10), “Amar Pelos Dois” (#11), “Arcade” (#12) and “Stefania” (#12), although slightly earlier than them. This was useful, however, as it separated Sweden from Finland, in slot #13, the latest possible position in the first half. The choice was very obvious for a catchy, uptempo favourite condemned to be in the first half.
Both songs were separated by a set of three power ballads (Albania, Italy, Estonia), which the official recap almost displayedd as “shouting ballads”, almost including Sweden in it. This was clearly giving Finland a good contrast.
The show started with an original, new feature: a scoreboard of Eurovision victories, showing Sweden in its second position, ready to tie with Ireland in numbers of wins. The narrative was set: the show could begin.
The jury votes — Un unassailable lead?
After all the songs had been performed, the jury votes started to be revealed. For the first time, they would not count for exactly 50% of the final score: with the new “Rest of the World” televote, there were 37 sets of jury points, and 38 sets of televote points, giving the televote a slight edge.
The first country to announce its points was Ukraine, and it gave 12 points to Sweden. And as the next countries were called, each revealed that Sweden had either topped their jury rankings, or been very high in them (with the exception of San Marino, which only gave 4 jury points to Sweden). After ten juries, Sweden had been on top since the beginning, with almost twice the number of points of the runner-up, Italy: 102 to 55.
Finland was sixth, with a tail of chasers made up of Israel, Estonia and Lithuania. It was receiving points from most countries, though not all, and only received its first set of 12 points when the 24th jury, Norway, got around. Three juries later, with only ten countries left, Finland had climbed to a solid fourth position, with 120 points, not far behind Israel (129 points, third) and Italy (131 points, second).
In the meantime, Sweden had received more and more top scores from other juries, including the Finnish one. When their turn came, they gave 12 points to “Cha Cha Cha”, in a beautiful moment of fair-play: a few years before, in 2017, the two favourites Bulgaria and Portugal had given no jury points to one another…
As the last votes arrived, the results were clear: Sweden had, quite literally, been on top for the entire voting sequence after the first 12 points. The only country who had managed it before in the current system was Portugal in 2017.
This was very far from the the results of the past four editions, where the juries’ trop three were either very close (2019), or relatively spread between 200 and 280 points (2018, 2021, 2022). This was much closer to the 2017 results. And even though Loreen had received less points than the Sobrals in Kyiv (340 against 382), she had actually performed better. Portugal, in 2017, had received 77.6% of the maximum potential points it could have gotten from the 41 other juries ; Sweden, in 2023, had received 78.7% of that same maximum, with only 36 juries able to vote for “Tattoo”. These were spearheaded by a grand total of 15 juries giving Loreen their top mark of 12 points.
In the end, the close fight for second place between Italy and Israel was won by the latter, with 177 points against 176. Finland was fourth with 150 points, and Estonia closed the top 5 a few points behind, at 146. Sweden’s lead was impressive: could Loreen be beaten, or was this unassailable?
The televote results — the fight of two landslides
The televote was once again announced in the order of the jury ranking. Germany were also, once again, the first to be called, and they once again received a very small score which was still higher than their jury score. This was followed by Croatia receiving a triple-figure score of 112 points, but the differences between juries and televote were not as clear for most of the sequence.
The first big difference came from Norway, which received 216 points from the public, much higher than the meagre 52 from the juries. This put it in the runner-up position for a time, and it would end up being the third highest televote score of the year, opening a Nordic top 3. One country later, after France, Ukraine received a slightly weaker score that was still much more than its jury score, with 189 televote points after 54 points from the jury.
After a few opposite presentations (only 5 points for Spain, only 16 for Austria, only 21 for Australia), it was time for the top 5. Estonia was first, and received a similarly low score from the televote, with 22 points. Then came Finland. The roar of disapproval for Estonia’s score turned into a roar of cheers and expectations, even before the hosts had announced who was next in line.
All right everybody, we are about to find out what the public awarded Finland.
Graham Norton announcing the televote points of Finland
Finland, after the public voted, you received…
…Three hundred and seventy-six points, we have a new leader!
Whereas in 2022 the announcement of Ukraine’s score, also in fourth position in the jury ranking, was enough for us fans to know everything was over, the Finnish score in Liverpool was not a clear cut result, especially with the Swedish landslide in the jury votes. This time, we had to wait until the very end to be sure.
Italy received 174 points, almost the same as its 176 points in the jury, thus reproducing Spain’s balanced results of 2022, but some fifty points behind. Israel received 185 points, a bit more than its 178 from the jury but still very much on the same scale, thus remaining above Italy in what would be the fight for the third place.
Only Sweden was left. As the split screen appeared, the crowd erupted in cheers of “Cha Cha Cha”, reminiscent of the 2017 chants of “Portugal! Portugal!”. Loreen needed 187 points to win. She received 243.
Loreen had won the jury vote and finished second in the public vote. Käärijä had won the latter, but finished fourth in the former, which was not enough to overcome Loreen. With 376 points though, Finland had reached the joint second-highest televote score of the history of the contest, tying with Portugal in 2017. But with 37 available televotes against 42 in Kyiv, this was, in relative terms, a better score than “Amar Pelos Dois”. It had also received more top marks, with 18 “douze points” for Käärijäa against 12 for the Sobrals. “Tattoo” had earned none, the only winner in history to go “douzeless” with the televote.
But Sweden had won, its 7th victory, and tied with Ireland for the most victories in the history of the song contest, 49 years after their first trophy, also in the United Kingdom (but in Brighton), with ABBA. Loreen also became the second person and the first woman to win the contest twice as a singer.
A second trophy for Loreen
Loreen walked out of the Green Room, stepping next to the Finnish booth early in her journey to the stage. She had a gesture for the delegation, but she had to keep going. The camera did show several people surrounding this section of the room, including members of other delegations (Luke Black from Serbia, Salena from Austria, and members of the Ukrainian delegation) consoling Käärijä and his team.
After walking through some corridors of the arena, she arrived on stage and walked towards the B-stage, to receive the trophy from the hands of Oleh Psiuk, from Kalush Orchestra. Finally, after two years of hosts giving the trophy to the winner, a proper handover could take place on the Eurovision stage. Asked for a few words, Loreen gave us perhaps the less memorable victory words of the last few years: some might say it made them even more spontaneous and authentic.
Wow, this is overwhelming. I’m so happy, I’m so thankful! Thank you, for this!
LOREEN’s victory words, after receiving the 2023 Eurovision Trophy
Thank you!
She left to join the main stage and prepare for her winner’s performance, her prop being wheeled on stage.
And that was the road to victory for “Tattoo”: another clear season favourite who won the contest. But its path to the trophy was very different from “Stefania” or “Arcade”. Ukraine, in 2022, had landslided the televote in ways that could probably never happen again, which significantly lowered the necessary jury support to win. As for the Netherlands, they narrowly managed to win in 2019 because neither the jury nor the televote winners were strongly ahead in their respective votes. 2023 was perhaps closer to the 2018 experience, in which the winner of one vote had enough support in the other vote to win the whole thing. And the whole “Tattoo vs Cha Cha Cha” duel reminded fans of “Toy vs Fuego”.
But in Lisbon, Israel won the televote. In Liverpool, Sweden won the jury votes. And in Lisbon, Cyprus did not win the jury vote. Cyprus was below Israel in both sections. Käärijä winning the televote in a landslide, against Loreen doing the same with the jury votes, just materialised on stage, in front of more than 150 million people, the divide and rivalry between these songs.
After the final, videos of contestants cheering on Finland and joining Käärijä after the results, including Joker Out from Slovenia, continued to feed a narrative that the results had strengthened: the people’s favourites against the jury’s favourite. The victory of “Cha Cha Cha” over both “Tattoo” and “Euphoria” in the 2023 edition of ESC250 did not help either.
This narrative of the “fun, experimental, entry” being beaten (some fans would say “robbed”) by juries who don’t see its value, and who prefer more polished pop entries, was not new. The detailed results of 2015 showed that the juries had brought victory to Sweden when the public preferred Italy. And of course, several national selections had been through similar scenarios throughout the years. But that narrative was pushed to the extreme in 2023, dividing the fan community, fuelling the “anti-Sweden” sentiment for many (although it was more of an “anti-Melodifestivalen” sentiment in a way). 2024 had all the elements to reinforce this, but with a very different and exceptional context, fans reacted differently…
My memories of this victory
The entire 2023 season was incredibly memorable for me. After years of sharing my passion with other fans, I somehow managed to convince family members, but also my flatmate, to watch some national selections. I even managed to make him watch the actual Eurovision shows with me!
The selection season was of a quality I had rarely, if ever, seen before, especially with the Nordics. Songs like “Ekko inni meg” (MGP, Norway), “Ylivoimainen” and “Hoida Mut” (UMK, Finland) are songs I still regularly play on my walkman.
This does not detract from the quality of the actual “class of 2023”: I enjoyed the nordic trio that ended up occupying the top televote spots (Norway, Sweden, Finland), and had a soft spot for the entries from Czechia, Slovenia, Latvia, and others. It was also a year in which I particularly followed the PR of some entrants, especially Joker Out, giving me the experience of how the fandom got more and more into the Käärijä bandwagon.
In the end, I was in the bandwagon too. I loved “Tattoo”, I loved the idea of coming back to Sweden, but the idea of rooting for the underdog was stronger. And as a fan, the idea of rewarding Finland for the best selection process I had seen so far, the idea of telling Sweden that their polished machine had started to lose soul, was stronger.
I was not surprised to see Loreen win, although I was a bit disappointed. I did not particularly buy into the narrative that “the televote winner should always win”, but I did see the importance for the contest to naturally balance between televote and jury advantage over the course of several years. Malmö 2024 did not particularly listen. Perhaps Basel 2025 will.
Did you follow the contest back in 2023? What are your memories of this experience, and of Loreen’s path to a second Eurovision victory? Tell us more in the comments below or on social media, at @escxtra! And be sure to check us again next week, for the final article of this series, to read about the victory of “The Code” in Malmö, and how a final result that could have looked like a repeat of 2023 (with Switzerland and Croatia) ended up feeling very different as Eurovision was hit by the strongest crisis in years.
