The 65th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest was held on May 18, 20 and 22, 2021 at the Rotterdam Ahoy, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, after this country's victory in 2019 in Israel with the song "Arcade" played by Duncan Laurence. The event, which should have taken place in 2020, was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Italy, the favourite according to all the bookmakers, won the final with the song Zitti e Buoni (Quiet and well Behaved) performed by the Italian rock band Måneskin, which as usual in the Alpine country, entered the contest after having won the San Remo Song Festival.

This was the third Italian victory in Eurovision, a contest they last won in 1990, when Toto Cotugno triumphed in Zagreb with his song Insieme: 1992. Italy’s first victory was in 1964 with the song Non Ho L'Etá performed by Gigliola Cinquetti. Both singers were the presenters of the 1991 edition held in Rome which is considered (to put it mildly) as one of the most controversial in history and by many Eurofans, simply, as the worst edition of the Eurovision Song Contest of all time. With this their third victory, the contest will return to Italy 31 years later and, hopefully! Things would be very different.

Italy is the second country of the Big-Five to win Eurovision since this "lucky" group was created in 1996. Germany did it in 2010.

After the jury votes Italy was in fourth place behind Switzerland, France and Malta (the three other big favourites of the night) with Switzerland and France very close all night and well ahead of the other two. The surprise, however, came with the votes of the public. Chosen as the winner by the audience, the 318 points of the tele voting catapulted Italy to the first position. France, with 251 points, was third in the tele voting behind Ukraine and had to settle for second place in the final, even bitterer was the result of the tele voting for Switzerland. They went from being the winner of the jury's vote to being only sixth for the fans, which ultimately put them in third place. Iceland was in fourth position with Daði & Gagnamagnið, the Icelandic group that with their song "Think About Things" had gone viral in 2020, being the clear favourite in all bets to win the edition of that ill-fated year. They were chosen again to represent their country in 2021 with the theme "10 Years" but to add insult to injury and, as if it were a remake of the misfortunes suffered by the Fire Saga band in the Netflix movie, the band could not perform neither in the semi-final nor in the final for a positive for coronavirus. The recording of his last rehearsal was what viewers watched while the band stayed locked down in their hotel. This was the only non-live performance of the grand finale.

Two of the “Big Five” countries: Italy and France finished first and second. The other three: Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom occupied the last three positions. They were joined by the host country, the Netherlands, also directly classified which finished 23rd just one place ahead of Spain. None of these last four qualifiers got a single vote from the public, something that had never happened before. Furthermore, the UK did not get any votes from the jury either, becoming the first country ever to receive "zero" points from both the jury and the public since this double voting system was introduced, among other things, mind you, to avoid any country going through that "zero point" embarrassment. No way.

A song sung in Italian won the contest and two songs sung in French came second a third. It had been 26 years since last time that none of the first three songs were in English. It happened in Dublin in 1995. Norway came first, Spain second and Sweden third. All three songs were sung in the official language of their respective countries.

Thirty-nine countries participated in this edition. Bulgaria and Ukraine returned after their absence from the 2019 contest. Hungary and Montenegro maintained their absence, which was joined by Armenia, while Belarus was disqualified for violating the regulations not to include political messages in the song.

As, according to the rules of the Eurovision Song Contest, the songs selected for the 2020 contest could not participate in 2021, up to twenty-two countries decided to internally select the same artists initially chosen for 2020 (same artist, different song) . These countries were Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Georgia, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Latvia, Malta, Moldova, Netherlands, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and Ukraine.

In September 2020, the EBU had decided that the contest would take place regardless of the circumstances and envisaged a series of possible scenarios, including that the contest would take place normally and without social distancing (scenario A) or with some distancing. Forced social (scenario B). A more than possible scenario C would allow some performances to be presented from their country of origin if the artists could not travel to Rotterdam due to the situation of the pandemic. Finally, in the worst-case scenario, scenario D would suppose that in the face of a border closure or confinement decreed in the host country, the contest would be carried out in a virtual format, presented in Rotterdam but without an audience or live performances.

In November 2020, EBU revealed that, to ensure that all countries could participate in the contest, each national television would record a live performance prior to the contest, which could be used if participants from that country were unable to travel to Rotterdam, or were quarantined upon arrival. The recordings would take place in a studio, in real time (as it would be in the contest) without any editing of the voices or any part of the performance. This format was put to the test during the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in November 2020 and while lacking all magic it would at least allow the contest to go through thick and thin.

On February 3, 2021, the EBU and the host broadcasters declared that they had ruled out organizing the contest in the normal way (scenario A).

On March 2, a health and safety protocol for the contest was published and the EBU stated that the contest would take place according to scenario B, as long as the circumstances did not change. Finally, this scenario was officially confirmed by the EBU on April 30 and complying with what was agreed at the beginning of the month, 3,500 people would be allowed to attend each of the nine shows, including the three live shows and the six rehearsals. Everybody, from fans to performers would have to test negative for COVID-19 and only assistance to residents of the Netherlands would be allowed, so Eurofans from around the world who had tickets to Rotterdam could not travel and received a refund instead.

Australia was the only country that, because of the coronavirus pandemic, declined to send its delegation to Rotterdam, so during the first semi-final, in which they had to perform, the live recording of their performance that they had previously sent was shown. Australia failed to qualify for the final, this being the first time the Aussies were left out since they were first invited to participate in 2015.

The interval titled "Rock the Roof" featured a pre-recorded performance of six Eurovision winners: Lenny Kuhr (1969), Teach-In (1975), Sandra Kim (1986), Helena Paparizou (2005), Lordi (2006) and Måns Zelmerlöw (2015) who performed the songs that had won the competition on various rooftops in Rotterdam.

Well, dear fans of the Eurovision Song Contest, whether you like Italian rock or not, see you in Italy in 2022.