Michela Pace will be the very first performer to take the stage during tomorrow night’s highly-anticipated Eurovision final after the official running order was announced early this morning – and that’s not good news.

“The running order is decided to ensure each act has the opportunity to stand out amongst the crowd,” the official Eurovision team said. “To come to a decision, the producers look at the genre of music, whether a song is performed by a solo singer or group, the use of props, the tempo of the song and various other aspects of each act.”

Right after the semi-finals, each act draws in which half they’ll be performing. The host country gets to choose their position – this year, Israel chose the 14th position, near the middle of the show.

Performing first is not something you want to be doing in the Eurovision: in the last 20 years, only six artists that performed in the first half of the show went on the win the contest – that’s only about 30%

As for Michela’s position tomorrow, no one in the last two decades has ever won after taking the Eurovision final stage first.

Performing in the second half is generally considered to increase an artist’s chances of winning: the 17th spot in particular is considered the best luck, with three artists winning – Loreen in 2012 for Sweden, Marija Šerifovic in 2007 for Serbia and Lordi in 2006 for Finland – in that in the last few years.

After position 17, position 22 is statistically the second best position to have.

The most recent entry to perform early and still go on to win is Turkey’s entry in 2003 – and they won by just two points over an entry that had performed in the 22nd position.

Michela’s awesome performance last night showed everyone just what a powerhouse vocalist Michela is – but will she be able to overcome these added odds against her?

This is the running order for Saturday’s Grand Final:

1. Malta: Michela – “Chameleon”
2. Albania: Jonida Maliqi – “Ktheju tokës”
3. Czech Republic: Lake Malawi – “Friend of a Friend”
4. Germany: S!sters – “Sister”
5. Russia: Sergey Lazarev – “Scream”
6. Denmark: Leonora – “Love Is Forever”
7. San Marino: Serhat – “Say Na Na Na”
8. North Macedonia: Tamara Todevska – “Proud”
9. Sweden: John Lundvik – “Too Late for Love”
10. Slovenia: Zala Kralj & Gašper Šantl – “Sebi”
11. Cyprus: Tamta – “Replay”
12. The Netherlands: Duncan Laurence – “Arcade”
13. Greece: Katerine Duska – “Better Love”
14. Israel: Kobi Marimi – “Home”
15. Norway: KEiiNO – “Spirit in the Sky”
16. United Kingdom: Michael Rice – “Bigger than Us”
17. Iceland: Hatari – “Hatrið mun sigra”
18. Estonia: Victor Crone – “Storm”
19. Belarus: ZENA – “Like It”
20. Azerbaijan: Chingiz – “Truth”
21. France: Bilal Hassani – “Roi”
22. Italy: Mahmood – “Soldi”
23. Serbia: Nevena Božović – “Kruna”
24. Switzerland: Luca Hänni – “She Got Me”
25. Australia: Kate Miller-Heidke – “Zero Gravity”
26. Spain: Miki – “La Venda”

How do you think Michela will do this Saturday?

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Johnathan Cilia

Johnathan is an award-winning Maltese journalist interested in social justice, politics, minority issues, music and food. Follow him at @supreofficialmt on Instagram, and send him news, food and music stories at [email protected]