Drinks with Lionel Messi & Zinedine Zidane, the world's maddest football chants & the best Roma shirt of all time - Nine reasons you should read MUNDIAL

The idea that the streets, or anyone, could ever forget Adel Taarabt is to do him a disservice. Nobody will ever forget Adel Taarabt, and especially not the QPR fans who saw him play for the club over 150 times between 2008 and 2015.

As fan and writer James Wright says: “My abiding memory is that he used to make me sit back and laugh. He did things on the pitch with such a level of precociousness, of such an imperial footballing arrogance that I could only find exasperated laughter. He was ridiculous”.

You’ll find Adel on the left-wing in our MUNDIAL All-Stars team.

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Ajax might be the cradle of Total Football, the home of Johan Cruyff, a talent machine that just keeps on producing players for the top shelf… but it’s also the club that could lay claim to having the best football shirts ever.

For the MUNDIAL All Stars Third Kit, we’ve chosen this Umbro away shirt from their 1989-90 team, the shirt that started the run of funky Umbro graphic shirts that defined the Bergkamp era.

A Classic Football Shirts Hall of Famer. A design masterpiece. About as grail as it gets.

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A bit like the Genius website for song lyrics you don’t understand, we’ve gone from the sprawling cities of South America to quaint English towns to explore the ways that thousands of people in football stadiums sing insulting things together to offend opposition fans.

So, from the Scottish singing “DEEP FRY YER PIZZAS, WE’RE GONNA DEEP FRY YER PIZZAAAAS” to Southend fans singing “SOUTHEND PIER IS LONGER THAN YOURS” to other towns with piers, we’ve broken down some of the best terrace chants in the world.

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Don’t know about you, but we spend quite a lot of time thinking about what it would be like to go for a drink with some of our favourite footballers of all time. To turn that into more of a reality, we’ve written about doing that with every winner of the Ballon d’Ors, in a piece called Early d’Ors. Get it?

Sparkling water and La Haine with Zidane, a night in the casino with R9, and waking up on a beach after capirinhas with Rivaldo.

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“When it did arrive, France '98 contained beaming rays of light. At the tail end of football’s most vibrant and in-flux decade, this was the tournament where international football really cranked up a gear. In the country where the World Cup was originally conceived, 32 countries took part for the first time ever and provided an abnormally high volume of top-quality teams.”

There’s an incredible piece about France, politics, and the 1998 World Cup in here by our regular contributor Michael Gibbons… which you’re going to love.

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In 1997, Newcastle United travelled to Monaco to play in the second-leg of a UEFA Cup tie that they were one-nil down in. A team featuring Thierry Henry, Fabien Barthez, and Ali Benarbia might have dispatched Newcastle 3-0, but the Geordies won the best flag competition with this BMX4SALE hand painted advert. Only 42 kwid, as well.

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Amongst the madness of this issue is a beautiful and poignant piece by co-founder, Seb White, about how watching women’s football with his daughter changed and even saved his life.

Seb’s football journey from going to Yeovil with his grandad, to selling fanzines, to starting this very magazine, collides with his home life, and this is a piece of writing that will remind you why you love your family, why you love football, and why you love Seb.

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We thought we had imagined these — a weird half dream, snatched memory, or maybe just a secret wish. Thankfully, they are real, and after contacting our friends at PUMA, we located the goods.

An exclusive release for the Italian market in a wonderful catalogue from 1987-88, the Super are your classic screw-in soft ground, and the Maradona Mundial are your classic firm ground moulds. Silver stripe, yellow tongues, absolute rascals. An incredible boot.

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Roma and adidas just makes sense. There is just something about the iconic colours of their home and away shirts and the three stripes that seems to fit. Nike tried their best in recent years, and Kappa and Diadora wrapping Francesco Totti in increasingly tight nylon arrangements throughout the late 90s and early 2000s was interesting enough, but it's the German brand that makes the Giallorossi look their best.

This kit is particularly special in a crowded early 90s field and blends two of MUNDIAL's greatest loves, the adidas equipment shoulder stripes and the humble adidas trefoil.

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