UEFA EURO - The Official Story [DVD]

This is one of two UEFA European Championship boxsets produced by Pitch International. Unlike the 50 Classic Matches collection, UEFA Euro - The Official Story is a polished affair, narrating as it does the history of the competition in 12 episodes over 4 discs.

Each edition of the event is featured in a separate episode, though the 1960 and 1964 competitions are, understandably, covered together in the opening installment. Every programme is presented in widescreen, but the producers have this time treated the archive footage with care and added borders to original 4:3 footage to ensure the correct aspect and resolution. The failure to apply this to the sister boxset rendered that unwatchable.

Content-wise, each programme is essentially a documentary featuring narrated footage and multiple interviews with the stars of the day. The highly impessive cast includes Franz Beckenbauer, Bobby Charlton, Michel Platini, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, and Marco Van Basten who all contribute their insights, as do Jean-Marie Pfaff, Antonin Panenka, Peter Schmeichel, and too many more to mention. Clearly, huge effort went into this production, and these interviews are interwoven with the action and some cleverly-shot still photography. Coverage is very thorough with almost every goal in every tournament featured. The narrated script is informative and well-researched, and the accompanying soundtrack adds to the experience.

If you want a record of the European Championship, this is the boxset to plump for. This isn't an action highlights set with original match commentary (and, sadly, neither is the 50 Classic Matches collection with its dubbed commentary), but it is a wonderful trip through the history and emotion of a fantastic competition told by the men who made it: the players.

It's packaged very beautifully in a lovely gate-fold box and comes highly recommended.

a good isight to the world of european football it covers most of the important matches and the information is top notch all in all a brilliant dvd

This is as near to a flawless history of the Eruos as it would be possible to get. My son and I enjoyed it thoroughly before and after Euro 2012 and it served as a beautiful complement to that excellent championship.

The match action is fantastically well selected and is framed wonderfully well by former players and managers - and occasionally journalists - discussing the action and putting it into perspective. So enjoyable...