Onze Mondial (French)

This is definitely one of the best soccer magazines anywhere on the planet and before you say "I don't speak French" you really don't need to to appreciate the scope of this magazine. It's handy to know a foreign language and if you know Spanish or Italian, you are more likely to understand their language, but even that aside, if you are a big soccer fan like I am, every month they have a full color poster of the top players of France and in the world. The posters are two sided and conveniently can be taken out of the magazine in good shape if you open up the staples some and then, press them back down to make it like before. I mean I got an excellent poster of Portugal and Manchester United star Cristiano Ronaldo and it is a class poster all the way even if say, he's not my favorite player, they make the walls look sharp. The posters alone often makes it worth buying. A bit similar as well, every month they have 2 pages with 4 players on each page of what can be best described as cards of soccer players and from all of the leagues in Europe, Italy, Germany, France, England and others. These kinds of things seemingly would appeal more to kids, but satisfy yourself if you are a fan of "Le Foot" the French word for footy, football, what we Americans call soccer.

It is also one of the most reasonably price magazines around though the price may vary in different outlets and for some in the USA it may be only readily available on amazon but it's a good buy full of color photos, stories, standings and statistics. So many of the French players are reknown and playing in leagues outside of France that one can relate to it still, for example, Thierry Henry played for Arsenal all of those years and now is at Barcelona. This magazine has had him in articles on his career with those teams and the National team of France, otherwise L'Equipe de France. Chances are you'll pick up some basics on the French language and now, France has broke through with major victories in world soccer with such players as Zidane in recent years. France has been one of the best teams over the past decade or so.

Another thing, is it is well written and well presented. It doesn't digress into silly articles that I see in so many magazines nowadays, it is straight forward and it seems balanced in reporting. Besides, it often gives updates on the European leagues. Onze Mondial is a magazine that is in fact, popular in Africa and even in non-French speaking countries in Africa people read it. It's also a plus to be reading on the French league which it covers in detail. I've read soccer magazines in a few different languages, Kicker is from Germany and it compares favorable to it as well as the top knotch English publications World Soccer and FourFourTwo. There is added suspense with reading Once Mondial at the moment with the country's own national team in a bit of a jam about making the South African World Cup in 2010, but no matter who goes, they will cover it as they did the last World Cup, though France lost on penalty kicks to Italy, the banner headline on the cover was "Italia Bella" and I thought, they certainly are good sports. I think Onze Mondial magazine with the posters and cards do something that American magazines rarely do anymore and give the reader something of real value. You don't see that much anymore. It has been a real find for me.

My son is a 3rd grade French immersion student and I was looking for a way to get him to read in French for fun. This was the perfect solution! We'll be renewing our subscription.

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