Portugal's big-hearted crooner sings gentle romantic ballad, wins Eurovision
This is the first time Portugal won since it first entered the contest in 1964
A few weeks ago, Salvador Sobral, the 27-year-old Portuguese crooner who won Saturday’s Eurovision Song Contest, was an unknown artist waiting for a heart transplant.
But his intimate rendering of the melancholic Amar Pelos Dois (For the Both of Us) written by his older sister Luisa - a success in her own right - scored a huge victory in the kitschy contest in Kiev.
At first glance, his decision to forgo the elaborate choreography and heavy dance tempos favoured by most contestants had made him a long shot.
Shunning English to sing in a Portuguese tremolo that reflects a severe heart condition would also seem to bode ill for the Lisbon native, whose beard and ponytail make him look more of a hipster than a budding pop star.
“I don’t like pointless ‘fast food’ music, my songs have to have meaning, I sing with my heart,” he said recently.
Sobral’s low-key performance beat more traditionally flamboyant acts like bookmakers’ favourite Italian Francesco Gabbani and his “dancing naked ape”, as well as Azerbaijan’s entry featuring a man on a stepladder wearing a horse’s head.