To select their entry for the 2009 contest, which was held in Moscow, Russia, the Greek national broadcaster Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) internally selected Rouvas, while his song was chosen through the televised national final Ellinikós Telikós 2009, which consisted of three candidate songs voted upon by the public and a jury.

Following the selection of the song, Rouvas began to travel around Europe and appeared on many television shows, including events held by other participants in the contest.

[3] Their least successful result was in 1998, when they placed 20th with the song "Mia krifi evaisthisia" by Thalassa, receiving only 12 points in total, all from Cyprus.

[10] Following the announcement of Rouvas as their Eurovision Song Contest 2009 representative, ERT revealed during a press conference on 14 October 2008 that he would perform three songs, all written by Dimitris Kontopoulos and choreographed by Fokas Evangelinos, during a national final titled Ellinikós Telikós 2009 (Greek: Ελληνικός Τελικός, "Greek final").

The show was directed by Giorgos Kapoutzidis and televised on ERT's NET channel as well as online via eurovision.ert.gr and the official Eurovision Song Contest website eurovision.tv.

[12][23] The jury consisted of Mimis Plessas (composer and jury president), Dimitris Gontikas (General Manager of ERT Television), Antonis Andrikakis (lyricist and General Manager of ERT Radio), Evangelia Piskera (Director of ERT Public Relations), Olga Pavlatou (record executive), Giorgos Kyvelos (record producer) and a seventh press vote by Stella Floras consisting of the results from a poll conducted by Eurovision news website ESCToday that featured international Eurovision fans.

[24][25] In addition to the performances of the competing entries, the interval acts featured guest performances by Eurovision Song Contest 2009 participants from Belarus (Petr Elfimov), Cyprus (Christina Metaxa), Malta (Chiara), Montenegro (Andrea Demirović), Turkey (Hadise) and the UK (Jade Ewen), as well as Greece's 2008 representative Kalomira.

[29] The Eurovision Song Contest 2009 took place at the Olympic Stadium in Moscow, Russia and consisted of two semi-finals held on 12 and 14 May, respectively, and the final on 16 May 2009.

[33] Once all the competing songs for the contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the delegation heads of the 42 participating countries; Greece was set to perform 13th in the field of 19, following Azerbaijan and preceding Lithuania.

[38] The performance included complex choreography, with Richard Galpin of BBC News remarking that "Greece's Sakis Rouvas had one of the more ambitious dance routines" of the contest.

[45] Whilst Rouvas was disappointed with his seventh-place finish, announcing to Greek media "I am so sorry, I wanted us to win", there was still support towards the artist himself in the country.

[46] The media and public pronounced their support for Rouvas, the general consensus being that the artist gave it his best even though this did not translate in enough votes in the contest.

"[46] Some critics, including those from Global Greek Radio, suggested the reason why Greece failed to achieve a higher placing was due to a lack of an ethnic-sounding song.

This jury judged each entry based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act.

[47][48] The tables below visualise a complete breakdown of points awarded to Greece in both the second semi-final and the final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2009, as well as by the country on both occasions.