Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32885 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-05-29
• Rating: Exempt
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 95 minutes

Synopsis
The official review of the world's greatest Club Football Competition. 'Champions Of Europe' celebrates fifty years of top class football. Features star players, great goals as well as extended highlights and exclusive footage.

Customer Reviews

Very disappointing.
This DVD contains the original footage, but NOT the original commentary.

Instead, Desmond Lynam narrates over the footage, often telling you in excruciatingly unnecessary detail about what you can see in front of you- eg player X played the ball with his right foot across the area to player Y who was to the right of the centre and who ran on to the ball and blasted it with his right foot in to the top left corner of the net, leaving the goalkeeper with no chance.

And sometimes the grammar of the narration is poor, so you're told that Xabi Alonso scored from a penalty, at the second attempt, in the 2005 final, rather than from a rebound.

And sometimes, the facts are wrong, so it's Jimmy Nicholl, rather than Steve Nicol, who missed Liverpool's first penalty in the 1984 shoot-out.

(These are not isolated errors.)

Build-up footage to the 2005 final is also very oddly placed throughout and, while the interview moments with some very famous ex-footballers are good, interviews with sometimes more appropriate ex-players would have been better.

As for the "packed with special features", they amount to a re-presentation of the British wins with a different narrator, but seemingly the same words, and a multiple choice text quiz.

Overall- Poor.

(But you do get the footage.)

Superb Quality - Professional Production
Champions of Europe is a rare thing indeed - A high quality, well researched and professionally presented football DVD; narrated superbly by Des Lynam.

It gives the history of the European Cup / Champions League, from its inception in 1955 up to the 50th anniversary in 2005.

Running time is one and a half hours, during which you get to see highlights from every single final. There is an introduction to each game, giving a brief background to the teams involved, their managers and players. In addition, there are many illuminating interviews with some of the great players who have taken part such as: Eusebio, Cruyff, Beckenbauer, Charlton, Maldini, Beckham & Zidane.

One of the best DVDs on football I've ever purchased.