Spanish Soccer Team Desperately Seeking Madonna and Her 36-Year-Old Shirt

 Madonna arrives for the Dolce & Gabbana Fall/Winter 2026/2027 fashion show during Fashion Week in Milan, Italy, February 28, 2026. (Reuters)
Madonna arrives for the Dolce & Gabbana Fall/Winter 2026/2027 fashion show during Fashion Week in Milan, Italy, February 28, 2026. (Reuters)
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Spanish Soccer Team Desperately Seeking Madonna and Her 36-Year-Old Shirt

 Madonna arrives for the Dolce & Gabbana Fall/Winter 2026/2027 fashion show during Fashion Week in Milan, Italy, February 28, 2026. (Reuters)
Madonna arrives for the Dolce & Gabbana Fall/Winter 2026/2027 fashion show during Fashion Week in Milan, Italy, February 28, 2026. (Reuters)

Spanish soccer team Celta Vigo is desperately seeking Madonna as it goes in search of a 36-year-old soccer shirt the pop star wore during a 1990 concert at its Balaidos stadium.

Madonna appeared on stage wearing the club's true blue colors during her Blonde Ambition tour in July 1990.

She delighted locals who claimed the material girl as one of their own and brought unexpected attention to defender Jose Manuel Espinosa, whose No. 5 shirt she wore.

However, the whereabouts of the cherished garment are unknown and, after searching fruitlessly for decades, Celta is asking the 67-year-old Madonna to help find it for the club's archive.

“Although ours was not the only football shirt you ever wore on stage, this iconic image has grown to shine differently as years have passed,” Celta president Marián Mouriño Terrazo wrote in an open letter to the American icon.

“Over time we came to better understand what you stood for back then: questioning established norms and standing up to those who try to tell you what you can or cannot do. At our club we recognize ourselves in this line of thought. That is why we hold on to the hope of finding the garment you once wore.

“Do you have it? If you know where it may be, or if you would like to join us in the search to retrieve it, please contact us via private message.”

The appeal caused a commotion on social media after it was published on Wednesday and the club doubled down before Friday's 2-1 home league defeat by Real Madrid, playing Madonna’s songs before kickoff and putting her picture on the field and on social media.

Mouriño Terrazo told local media he was hopeful the repercussions would reach the pop star.

“I imagine that the letter reached Madonna and that she will reply,” he said.

Madonna burst on the scene in 1983 with the hit Holiday and followed that with a run of top-10 hits that included “Like a Virgin”,” Papa Don’t Preach” and “Ray of Light.”

She remains one of the most successful recording artists in history.



Haaland to Play Marauding Viking in New Animated Film

13 May 2026, United Kingdom, Manchester: Manchester City's Erling Haaland reacts on the substitute's bench ahead of the English Premier League match between Manchester City and Crystal Palace at the Etihad Stadium. (Martin Rickett/PA Wire/dpa)
13 May 2026, United Kingdom, Manchester: Manchester City's Erling Haaland reacts on the substitute's bench ahead of the English Premier League match between Manchester City and Crystal Palace at the Etihad Stadium. (Martin Rickett/PA Wire/dpa)
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Haaland to Play Marauding Viking in New Animated Film

13 May 2026, United Kingdom, Manchester: Manchester City's Erling Haaland reacts on the substitute's bench ahead of the English Premier League match between Manchester City and Crystal Palace at the Etihad Stadium. (Martin Rickett/PA Wire/dpa)
13 May 2026, United Kingdom, Manchester: Manchester City's Erling Haaland reacts on the substitute's bench ahead of the English Premier League match between Manchester City and Crystal Palace at the Etihad Stadium. (Martin Rickett/PA Wire/dpa)

In an inspired piece of casting, Norwegian striker Erling Haaland is to voice a fierce Viking warrior in a new animated film.

The giant Manchester City center-forward has long been compared to a marauding Viking on the pitch as he clocks up record after record as the fastest player in history to score 100 Premier League goals.

The film's producers at the Cannes Film Festival confirmed the star was part of the cast of "Viqueens", made by his fellow Norwegian Harald Zwart of "The Karate Kid" fame.

The children's tale, which will be released on Christmas Day, is set in a "world of fearless warrior girls, icy fjords, and Silk Road mythology".


‘Parasite’ Director Bong Says Making Animated Film to ‘Surpass’ Miyazaki

Bong Joon-ho arrives for the premiere of "The Electric Kiss" (La Venus Electrique) and the opening ceremony of the 79th annual Cannes Film Festival, in Cannes, France, 12 May 2026. (EPA)
Bong Joon-ho arrives for the premiere of "The Electric Kiss" (La Venus Electrique) and the opening ceremony of the 79th annual Cannes Film Festival, in Cannes, France, 12 May 2026. (EPA)
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‘Parasite’ Director Bong Says Making Animated Film to ‘Surpass’ Miyazaki

Bong Joon-ho arrives for the premiere of "The Electric Kiss" (La Venus Electrique) and the opening ceremony of the 79th annual Cannes Film Festival, in Cannes, France, 12 May 2026. (EPA)
Bong Joon-ho arrives for the premiere of "The Electric Kiss" (La Venus Electrique) and the opening ceremony of the 79th annual Cannes Film Festival, in Cannes, France, 12 May 2026. (EPA)

South Korean maestro Bong Joon-ho -- who won three Oscars and the Palme d'Or at Cannes for "Parasite" -- is making his first animated film.

"Ally" is the story of a clever piglet-like squid living in the depths of the Pacific Ocean, and shows how "encounters between humans and the creatures of the deep can reshape both worlds," according to its producers.

The acclaimed director told reporters at the Cannes Film Festival that he hopes to try to match Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki and George Miller of "Babe" fame.

"I've always wanted to create an awesome action sequence that can surpass the great ones created by George Miller or Miyazaki, and I felt this film was my chance to practice that ambition," he told the film industry bible Variety at the Cannes Film Festival.

Bong, who won a cult following for films like the sci-fi "Snowpiercer", has already made a creature feature, "Okja", starring Paul Dano and Tilda Swinton in 2017.

He admitted his fans "might be surprised that it's an animation".

"But once they actually see the film" next year "it'll be quite familiar to them and they might be happy to see my signatures."

Bong, 56, has been working on and off on the movie for nearly seven years and released the first images of the family feature last month. It is expected to be completed in the first half of 2027 and released later in the year.


'Beyond the Oscar': Travolta Gets Surprise Cannes Prize

John Travolta with his honorary lifetime achievement Palme d'Or. Olivier CHASSIGNOLE / AFP
John Travolta with his honorary lifetime achievement Palme d'Or. Olivier CHASSIGNOLE / AFP
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'Beyond the Oscar': Travolta Gets Surprise Cannes Prize

John Travolta with his honorary lifetime achievement Palme d'Or. Olivier CHASSIGNOLE / AFP
John Travolta with his honorary lifetime achievement Palme d'Or. Olivier CHASSIGNOLE / AFP

Hollywood star John Travolta was given a surprise lifetime achievement award at the Cannes Film Festival Friday as he premiered the first movie he has ever directed.

The man who became an icon overnight with "Saturday Night Fever" was visibly moved as he accepted the honorary Palme d'Or before the screening of "Propeller One-Way Night Coach", which is based on a book about his first experience in an airliner.

"I just can't believe it. This is beyond the Oscar, really," he said as he accepted the tribute.

The festival has been laying on the love for Hollywood legends this year despite the big studios staying away, with honorary Palmes for Barbra Streisand and Peter Jackson as well as a gala screening for Vin Diesel and the stars of "The Fast and the Furious" franchise to mark its 25th anniversary.

Travolta -- who has never won an Oscar -- revived his flagging career with his iconic turn as hitman Vincent Vega in Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction", which won the festival's Palme d'Or top prize in 1994.

Many critics hailed it as his greatest performance, one that has since gone down in cinema history, said AFP.

"My favorite movies in the history of my life have always been the winners of the Palme d'Or," Travolta said.

- Behind the camera -

Cannes had kept the award under wraps until the actor walked on stage for the premiere wearing a black suit and a white beret.

The 72-year-old said he had been hugely surprised to have his directorial debut, which stars his daughter Ella Bleu as an air hostess, accepted at the world's most prestigious film festival.

When Cannes director Thierry Fremaux told him in November that "it would be the first film ever accepted that early I cried like a baby," he said.

"I had no expectation my film would be accepted," he added.

"Propeller One-Way Night Coach" is a one-hour self-financed autobiographical tale about Travolta's flight as an eight-year-old with his actress mother from New York to Los Angeles in 1962.

"This is the blueprint of my life," said the actor, a lifelong aeroplane nut, who narrates the story.

"What you'll see in the movie is completely my perspective on what I witnessed people go through.

"Everyone that was in the movie is sitting in the audience right there, my family," he added.

Travolta was bitten by the acting bug early.

Born in New Jersey to the an Irish mother and an Italian-American father who ran a tyre store, he left school at 16 to try his hand at acting and dancing.

Two years later he landed his first big stage role in the Broadway musical "Grease".

He was nominated for an Oscar in 1978 for playing disco-dancing champion Tony Manero in the low-budget "Saturday Night Fever" and was launched into the Hollywood stratosphere by his role in the movie version of "Grease" the same year.

The rights to "Propeller One-Way Night Coach" have been bought by Apple, Travolta said.

Asked if he would direct again, he said he had watched all sorts of directors as an actor.

"I really believe that I can navigate around all of that, and anything I would choose to do, but I really feel I have to have passion about the material to do again what I've done here," he said.