A young Aston Villa fan looked set for a tearful night when a steward tore away his banner asking for his favourite player’s shirt – but it turned out better than he could have dreamed. Aston Villa blew away Dutch team AZ Alkmaar at AFAS Stadion on Thursday evening, and one fan was hoping to come away with Moussa Diaby’s shirt. Goals from Leon Bailey, Youri Tielemans, Ollie Watkins and John McGinn secured a 4-1 victory for Villa. After the game, manager Unai Emery said: “There were 1,000 fans here helping us and we played 90 minutes, being very competitive.” But for the young supporter, things looked set to end on a sour note, after a steward ripped the sign down and binned it. He had even written his message in Diaby’s native French. The fan was seen with his hands over his face crying as another steward went over to console him. One person captured the moment on X/Twitter, saying: “That’s unnecessary from the stewards to throw it in the bin.” Luckily for the boy, things took a turn for the better after news of what had happened made its way to the Aston Villa players. He was able to meet his hero after the game, as Diaby invited him onto the pitch, took a picture with him and gave him the shirt as a gift. The lad was grinning from ear to ear as he got a handshake and an embrace from the Frenchman. It’s the sort of fairytale story the young fan will carry with him for the rest of his life – getting to meet Aston Villa’s star player on a victorious European away night. The club summed it up perfectly, sharing the clip on X/Twitter, with the caption: “This is what it’s all about.” How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

St. Louis Cardinals manager Oli Marmol may have taken a shot at young pitching prospect Matthew Liberatore, who was scheduled to start against the Guardians.Intentional or not, sometimes Oli Marmol says a little too much.When Marmol criticized Tyler O'Neill for his lack of hustle to sta...

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Time travel, or just an illusion? Eagle eyed art lovers have spotted what appears to be a satellite in a four-century old painting of Jesus Christ. The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are depicted in the ‘Glorification of the Eucharist’, a painting by Ventura Salimbeni from 1595. But in the background is something surprising – a blue sphere with spikes sticking out of it, which some people have interpreted as Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the Earth in 1957. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Steve Mera, chairman of the Manchester Association of Paranormal Investigation & Training (MAPIT) and a paranormal specialist and lecturer, said at a conference: “You start to find a lot of religious connotation linked in with the UFO phenomenon. “This painting [the Eucharist] was painted in the 1600s and nobody ever really knew what that was a painting of, until we kind of looked at Sputnik, which was the first satellite to pass round the Earth,” he said. “What is really, really interesting is it is surprisingly similar to Sputnik, even to the point there is a little nodule there (on Sputnik) and the exact same nodule on the side there [on the object in the painting].” Clearly, Salimbeni wouldn’t have known about Sputnik. Or would he…? Mera added: "Did they somehow have knowledge of future events?" Well, we can probably assume not. Instead, experts think the ball is a representation of the so-called celestial sphere (or the universe), while the spikes indicate God’s power over it. But for conspiracy theorists, it’s yet another win for time travel. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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