The biggest football tournament after the FIFA World Cup is back, and with it the perfect companion to the event has also arrived — The Official Euro 2012 Fan’s Guide.

Held after every four years, Euro 2012 will kick off in eight football stadiums of Poland and Ukraine, and will feature the top 16 European football teams, including World Champions Spain, runners-up The Netherlands as well as giants Germany, France and England.

This book starts with a background of the Euro 2012 event and details how Poland-Ukraine ended up as hosts. All the eight venues — four in Ukraine and four in Poland — are discussed in detail. You will also get to know that as many as six stadiums were specially constructed for the tournament, whereas two were significantly reconstructed for the mega event.

Pictures of the stadiums, as well as a tourist’s guide to Poland and Ukraine, combine to add to this guide’s stature. And then, there is the background of both Polish as well as Ukranian history that makes your day. Such information isn’t available everywhere, right?

Coming back to the tournament, details from the qualifying tournament to the Euro 2012 Draw are also made available in this guide, where you come to know that England ended up as Group leaders — a huge relief for them after their disastrous World Cup two years back. The event’s schedule is also available in the guide and tells you that it kicks off on June 8, and ends on July 1, 2012.

A look at the teams, group wise, is bound to keep you captivated for sometime as you get to know about the team management as well as the team and the country’s performance in the event since it began. The star player of each team is discussed separately, where he is briefly profiled so that when the event begins, you know who to cheer for and when!

And then there is a look at the history of the event that will see 16 teams battle each other for 24 days this summer! When did UEFA European Championship begin, who were the players who saw their team through, how did the minor event became one of the biggest in the world, each and every detail regarding the Euros can be found in these pages. The records of each team as well as individual players make this book one of the best efforts ahead of any mega event.

Packed with action photographs as well as facts that you don’t know, this is a must-buy book for fans of football. If you didn’t know that Germany is the leading Euro winner with three titles followed by two-time Champions France and Spain, if you didn’t know that England and Portugal have never won the event, and that Czech players Miroslav and Michal Kadlec are the only father and son duo to have played in the event (one in 1984, the other in 2008), then don’t worry. This book will tell you all that you don’t know!

The fill-in chart of the tournament as well as trivia will give you a chance to monitor the event from the comfort of your home and that too as an expert! And if you have this guide, you are likely to know more about the event than all your friends combined! — O. A.