Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Final: Attack on Wembley’ on Netflix, a Documentary Look at the Ugly Events Surrounding England’s Euro 2020 Final Appearance

In July 2021, England’s national soccer team made the UEFA Euro 2020 Final, what would be their first appearance in a major tournament’s final since the 1966 World Cup. What’s more, the final would be played at London’s Wembley Stadium; coming off a year delay due to COVID, enthusiasm was high. What happened next was chaos, with thousands of unticketed fans attempting to breach the stadium, an ugly day recounted in The Final: Attack on Wembley, a new feature-length documentary on Netflix.

THE FINAL: ATTACK ON WEMBLEY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: The UEFA Euro 2020 Final was to be a triumph for England fans, a chance to win a major tournament in their own national stadium. It didn’t turn out that way, and what ensued was some of the worst football-fan violence since the days of hooliganism decades prior. Thousands attempted to breach the stadium, and numerous fans and security personnel were injured in the chaos. The Final: Attack on Wembley recounts this ugly day in context–the build-up, the enthusiasm for the game, the pent-up energy after COVID, and the blow-up that resulted–with ample footage from the day interspersed with interviews with fans, commentators, players and officials.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: It’s hard not to think about Hillsborough, the ESPN 30 For 30 recounting the horrific events of April 15th, 1989, when 97 football fans died in a crush at Sheffield’s Hillsborough Stadium. (Or, for that matter, any of the many other documentaries on that topic.) Thankfully, the events at Wembley didn’t rise to that level, but it certainly brings it to mind.

Performance Worth Watching: There’s appropriate context given by stadium officials, sports commentators and all other manner of expert-adjacent voices, but the real flavor of the film comes from interviews with average fans, people whose enthusiasm for the sport placed them at the stadium that day. “I’m looking forward to getting to Wembley… I was prepared to spend what I earned in a month on a ticket for that game,” one recalls. “The tickets were going for like, a few grand… I can’t pay a few grand for an England game, I’d just go there for the party, I guess,” another says. Perhaps the most stirring, though, comes from Taz, a security guard who describes his own enthusiasm for the game, and happiness that he could be there working even if he couldn’t afford a ticket. “I want to be there, I want to hear the roar, I want to see them pick up the trophy.”

Memorable Dialogue: “This is the chance to see something that hasn’t happened for fifty-five years,” Daily Mail sports correspondent Mike Keegan recalls of the frenzied build-up to the Euro 2020 Final, recollections that set the stage for what happened next. “This is history, and you want to be there to see it. The tickets were like gold dust. I was one of the fortunate ones to be in the position to pay more than six hundred pounds to go and watch a football match… on websites, they were changing hands for thousands of pounds. It was ludicrous.”

Sex and Skin: Well, there’s skin, but I wouldn’t exactly call it sexy–at one point, we see a nude man’s genitals as his mates light fireworks held in his buttocks. Caveat emptor, don’t say you weren’t warned, etc.

Our Take: Watching The Final: Attack on Wembley feels like watching a storm come in. You can feel it building even before the clouds even form–the air is heavy, warm and damp, all the elements for something truly destructive is there.

The film, a taut, 82-minute documentary, does a compelling job of building the story even if you’re not terribly invested in the football itself. We’re led to understand the elements: England is playing in their first major tournament final in 55 years, and they’re doing it at their home stadium. Tickets are impossible to find, and going for thousands of pounds each on the secondary markets. After a year of COVID-related restrictions, fans are full of pent-up energy for a public party. Thousands of fans have the same, seemingly-innocuous notion: well, even if I can’t find tickets, I should go down there. It’s going to be a party.

What unfolds from there is some of the worst violence around a European football match since the bad old days of hooliganism, days that most had hoped would stay in the past.

When the film reaches the day of the match, it plays a little like an episode of 24, with on-screen clocks counting down the time until the match is set to start. Individual perspectives converge–fans who’d come down for a good time, police officials whose job is to keep order, commentators realizing that things are going downhill fast. “Wembley Way is packed with thousands of ticketless supporters, there’s clearly not enough security there, there’s not enough stewards, there’s not enough police… and those people on Wembley Way without tickets know that there are 23,000 empty seats because of COVID restrictions,” sports correspondent Mike Keegan recalls. “When you put that all together, it’s the perfect storm. If I was on the ground, and I was a steward, I would be absolutely terrified.” We quickly jump from here to an interview with one of those stewards, Taz–an England fan and security steward thrown into the mix.

Fans begin forcing their way through the turnstiles, and the sense of panic is palpable: this is about to go very wrong.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Final: Attack on Wembley is a compelling portrait of how a day that could’ve been joyous turned ugly. It’s tight, well-paced, and really puts the viewer in the scene as it happened.

Scott Hines, publisher of the widely-beloved Action Cookbook Newsletter, is an architect, blogger and proficient internet user based in Louisville, Kentucky.