Monday Night luxury for the second week of the Premier League. In Birmingham, Aston Villa, winner of the last Europa League, and Arsenal, reigning champion and finalist of the last Champions League, faced each other. A high-level match, although Emery's team has dismantled the core of the team, removing the players who had formed the backbone of the last minutes. So, it is a year of transition and a year of changes for the historic Villa Park facility, which is undergoing a transformation. Practically, the stadium is currently without a stand. This is very noticeable and after a few minutes a worker, obviously chosen because he is part of the construction staff, in the role of ball collector returned the ball with a safety helmet on his head. This image quickly made the rounds of the world.
Works at Villa Park and the modernization of the North Stand
Major reconstruction and expansion works are underway at Villa Park to modernise the facility and increase the overall capacity, which will exceed 50,000 seats. The works have also been boosted by Euro 2028. The main intervention concerns the expansion and modernisation of the northern stand – the so-called North Stand, which has not collapsed. The idea is to reuse and modernise the existing structure. The works will take around a year to complete.
A worker becomes a ball collector in the grandstand being reconstructed
Aston Villa fans know what's going on in that stadium, while most other fans don't. As soon as the match started, jokes began on social media, even with excessive irony, about that stand, which in Italy would be called a "curve", completely dismantled. Of course, the view is strong.
But the most spectacular came a few minutes later, when Scot John McGinn, one of the team's icons, shot from distance with the aim of beating Ray, but the ball ended up over the crossbar and ended up in the North Stand, which was completely empty. Someone had to get the ball and there was a construction worker, most likely one of those carrying out the work, with a hard hat on his head, who went to get the ball. And this sight, yes, really went around the world. Such a scene had never been seen before.
