1/2: The Eurovision Song Contest - Campy, Chaotic and Completely Serious

Eurovision has many things that soccer does - underdogs, spectacular collapses, bloc loyalties, political scores settled through performance, and a continent watching the same spectacle at the same time. And this year, the Eurovision Song Contest, a live-for-TV music contest with continent-wide public voting, is happening in Vienna, this coming weekend. Why there? Austria won it last year.Here is a primer of, a short debate about, and a quiz about the Song Contest. And an outlook on how this year will go down. Plus many short clips of musical Eurovision highlights that came up in our conversation. All with 4 fans, of the contest and of football:Andy Payne (England - West Ham United, chair of the fan advisory board)Justus Römeth (Germany - Union St. Gilloise, BeUnion fanclub)Julia Gollner (Austria - Sturm Graz, and orchestra harpist in Flensburg, Germany, and my sister;)Songs from the episode: Sandie Shaw - Puppet on a String; Katrina and The Waves - Love Shine a Light; Abba - Waterloo; Erika Vikman - Ich Komme; Guildo Horn - Guildo hat Euch lieb; Dana International - Viva la Diva; Lordi - Hard Rock Hallelujah; Windows95man - No Rules!HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:Babbel’s Intro to the Eurovision 5-minute interval act at the 2016 contest (in Sweden) that explains, in humorous ways, how winning the Eurovision “works.” Spoiler: love love, peace peace.NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup) Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook. If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, pleaseRecommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help. Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige LindInstrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/