Mari Pudas
Finland’s ranking in sixth place is the most disappointing of all time, writes journalist Mari Pudas.
Pete Parkkonen and Linda Lampenius did not win Eurovision. Inka Soveri
Viiskevat 2026 was wonderful for Finns until May 17. Finland was considered the winner ever since Liekinheitin took a crushing victory at UMK. In the position of pre-favourite, it was nice to push through Vienna. All good things come to an end, in the case of Finland it ended when the points started to drop, but not for Finland.
Finland got 12 points only from Sweden and Estonia. The others got points steadily, so Finland did a good job.
There is no getting away from the fact that finishing sixth is a downright fiasco, not because of the ranking but in relation to prior expectations. In Finland’s visa history, the result is of course good.
Five years ago, Finland’s Blind Channel was sixth. The investment made the most enthusiastic Vius fans flock to the market. In five years, Finland has become a country for which the weaving industry is a disappointment.
Linda Lampenius and Pete Parkkonen represented Finland wonderfully throughout the spring, and no matter how you go home, Liekinheitin is a skillful song and the performance itself was wonderful. You can be proud of that!
Everyone will surely remember the year 2023. Then Wrapper it was believed to get a lot of public votes, it was thought that the council votes would remain slim. That’s what happened, Loreen got enough public votes and overwhelmingly won the council votes. In Finland, it became clear that voting practices must be changed.
It was believed that Lampenius and Parkkonen would get council votes. It just so happened that they got fewer council votes than Käärijä!
Of course, it is difficult to know what is the reason for this.
The councils were renewed this year, when the number of councilors was increased from five to seven, and the councils must include two 18-25-year-olds.
Maybe this was the decisive thing and maybe this change was not taken into account enough in the preliminary speculations. Bulgarian Daran Bangaranga is a song that sinks into the youth, and it is one of the bangers of this year’s sages, exactly the kind of song that has been overshadowed by more “serious” songs in previous years.
This year, what has been announced in Finland for a long time came true – the one with the most public votes won!
Bulgaria underlined its victory by also taking the council votes. Last time, both the council and public votes were won by Portugal’s Salvador Sobral.
But Bangaranga as a composition and a song is not strange. However, it has the ingredients of a nice summer hit. And it’s a song that gets the crowd going. A flamethrower is not like that.
Would Finland have won without changes in the race? Perhaps.
Bulgaria is perhaps the surprise winner of all time. Bulgaria was out of the fives for three years, and this year it returned to the ice. And won immediately! No one ever said anything about it. Only a day before the five-a-side final, Bulgaria’s odds started to fall.
I wrote earlier how all foreign colleagues assured us Finns that we would win.
However, disbelief has simmered the whole time – we cannot win, however, because we are Finland. That’s exactly what happened. The level of the wise men was not that bad this year. Many large countries were left out of the visas. Finland was the early favorite. We still didn’t win.
The participation of Israel is something that mixes things up, when the country is voted for other than musical merits.
A rare messy final night ended with a strange apology. A Polish fan journalist marched to us Finns.
– I am really sorry that our jury gave Israel 12 points. I don’t know why this happened. If you write about it, I hope you mention that we are sorry.
A strange end to a strange night. It would be wiser to disappear from here.
