The Official Review of UEFA Euro 2008

Introduction:
UEFA Euro 2008 provided an unfamiliar dynamic for football fans this summer, given the fact that none of the home countries, nor the Republic of Ireland, qualified the tournament. The hopes of England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland were all ended in the final qualifying game (by Croatia, Italy, and Spain respectively), which meant that it was up to the aforementioned sides, aided by the likes of France, Portugal, and The Netherlands, to provide entertaining action.

In the end, it was Spain who triumphed in the competition,with a win over Joachim Low's Germany in the Final. It was a wonderful display of football by the Spanish, defeating the more physically intimidating Germany, whom many believed would simply bully the smaller Spanish off the pitch. Thankfully, for football's sake, that didn't happen.

"The Official Review of Euro 2008", then, is a nearthree-hour look back at the event, featuring goals and highlights of all of thematches, as they began on 7th June.

Video:
Video is presented in 16:9 anamorphic PAL (Region 0), and is excellentfor a DVD of this genre. With its quick motion, sports events can often cause problems for DVD authors, but there's no such issue here, with what is an exceptionally clean picture, largely devoid of digital artefacts.




Audio:
Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0, and is also very good. With what are basically television highlights here, the sound of the event itself, as well as the commentary, can be heard side-by-side, rather than with one impinging on the other.

There are further 2.0 tracks available in Dutch, German, Swedish, and French. There are also subtitles in Greek.




Extras:
A simple Top Ten Goals feature is available here, and is a fun quick-fire look at the best of tournament.




Overall:
Unlike FIFA's official tournament films, which take a more movie-like look at the events on the pitch, "The Official Review of Euro 2008"is more akin to what football fans are used to seeing. Here, there's no real frills to what's presented, but as a reminder of the tournament action, it achieves its task very well indeed.

Whereas the sister release "All The Goals of Euro 2008" provides the goals from the tournament and little else, here each match is presented in highlight form, a fact which obviously makes it much easier to portray the story of the tournament. The earlier rounds of matches receive three to four minutes here, whereas there's a full 10 minutes of the Final to be enjoyed at the end of the feature.

The action really plays out here like an extended episode of"Match of the Day". There is some interview footage with the main tournament protagonists, and a look at the fans of the respective countries, but it's the action that takes priority.

Speaking of which, whereas the Final between Spain and Germany was really just a showcase of Spanish brilliance, rather than a great match, there were several great matches and moments at Euro 2008. In the group stages, Holland were the competition's darlings, with great spectacles offootball during their emphatic win over Italy, and their defeat of France. Later in the tournament, it was the play of Fatih Terim's Turkey that caught the eye, as they defied the odds to oust Croatia in the quarter-finals.




Overall, then, with a well-produced DVD here providing highlights of all that happened at an enjoyable Euro 2008 tournament, the customer only has one decision to make, that being whether the goals ("All TheGoals of Euro 2008" DVD) or the highlights ("The Official Review of Euro 2008"DVD) is the product for them.

For me, unquestionably, it is the latter.