Jordan Pickford has said he wants to leave a legacy at Everton after signing a new contract with the club.
Pickford has penned a new four-year deal with the Toffees, a contract that will take his time with the club past a decade.
The 31-year-old joined Everton from Sunderland in 2017 and has since made 322 appearances for the Blues, winning the club’s Player of the Season Award on four occasions.
Jordan Pickford has signed a new four-year deal, keeping him at Everton until the end of June 2029.
During that time, he’s cemented a place as England’s number one. Pickford has won 80 caps for the Three Lions and has featured in four major tournaments.
Discussing his decision to extend at Everton, Pickford said he wants ‘build a legacy’.
“I’m delighted,” he told evertontv. “Delighted to get it done – it’s an extra two years, so four years in total. I’m over the moon and it gives me the opportunity to build a legacy for myself here, move forward and build this Club to where we want to be.
“Everton is a really special club to me. Coming from Sunderland as a young lad and growing into a man here, it’s been a special time for me and my family.
“I think everyone’s seen the changes and how I’ve developed over time, but I’m still that lad who loves to keep the ball out of the net. It’s been Everton who have helped me develop and a lot of hard work’s been put in as well.
“It’s always felt like a natural fit for me, with the fans and the passion – it’s second to none and something I thrive off.
Boston Bruins (3-2, in the Atlantic Division) vs. Colorado Avalanche (4-0-1, in the Central Division)
Denver; Saturday, 9 p.m. EDT
BOTTOM LINE: The Colorado Avalanche host the Boston Bruins after Valeri Nichushkin scored two goals in the Avalanche’s 4-1 win against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
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Colorado has a 4-0-1 record overall and a 1-0-1 record in home games. The Avalanche have a 3-0-1 record when scoring at least three goals.
Boston is 1-1-0 in road games and 3-2 overall. The Bruins serve 9.6 penalty minutes per game to rank seventh in the league.
The teams meet Saturday for the first time this season.
INJURIES: Avalanche: None listed.
Bruins: None listed.
___
The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.
When Yoshinobu Yamamoto arrived in Glendale, Arizona, for his first spring training with the Dodgers, fresh off signing the largest free-agent contract for a pitcher in MLB history, his new team quickly realized a minor problem.
The issue was not with Yamamoto himself — the then-25-year-old hurler was as good and as generationally talented as advertised — but with his interpreter, Yoshihiro “Hiro” Sonoda.
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Most dedicated Asian-language interpreters in MLB have a baseball background. Giants slugger Jung Hoo-Lee’s interpreter, Justin Han, worked for a team in the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) interpreting for the handful of American players making the cross-Pacific leap. Chicago Cubs All-Star Shota Imanaga has Edwin Stanberry, who played at the Division II level and spent a year playing independent ball. Tomoyuki Sugano’s guy, Yuto Sakurai, worked in baseball operations for the Toronto Blue Jays and San Francisco Giants before joining the Orioles.
But Sonoda was a very different story. He had no significant experience in baseball. The listed job history on what appears to be his Linkedin page is oddly scarce and includes only one other vaguely described occupation: “Film Lighting.” The specifics of Sonoda’s hiring — organized by Yamamoto’s agency, not the Dodgers — are hazy, but a story from Sonoda’s alma mater stated that he received the job after an open search.
Whatever the circumstances, Sonoda’s lack of baseball background posed an interesting challenge for the Dodgers’ player development group: How could they convey complex concepts to their $325 million player if the linguistic bridge between the two parties was unfamiliar with the very concepts that needed to be conveyed?
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“You’re going through two people,” Dodgers coach Chris Woodward explained to Yahoo Sports. “So the interpreter has got to know just as much as the player, or the interpreter might misinterpret what you’re saying.”
The solution? Baseball boot camp.
All throughout that spring training, the Dodgers’ battalion of ball-knowers put Sonoda through a hardball crash course. Pitching coaches Connor McGuiness and Mark Prior, alongside director of pitching Rob Hill, inundated the intelligent but unprepared former lighting engineer with the intricacies of the sport that now dominated his waking hours.
“We kind of flooded him with a ton of information,” McGuiness told Yahoo Sports back in May. “Starting very basic level, all the way up to pitch data, classifications, getting him the Driveline [certification]. Making him follow [media members] so he can hear basic terminology. We got him to follow Pitching Ninja on Twitter and Lance [Brozdowski] and all these guys that are talking about this stuff. It’s just like, ‘Hey, when you’re taking a dump, like, sit there and watch. How do they talk? What are the words they’re using?’”
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Slowly but surely, Sonoda sponged up the material.
That story is but one example of how the Dodgers have crafted an infrastructure that helps Japanese players dealing with significant cultural and linguistic barriers get the most out of their abilities.
The presence of Will Ireton, who serves as the primary interpreter for the other two Japanese Dodgers, two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani and rookie flame-thrower Roki Sasaki, also played a massive role in helping Sonoda and Yamamoto get up to speed.
Ireton joined the Dodgers organization in 2016 as the interpreter for pitcher Kenta Maeda, and he moved into baseball operations in February 2019. He remained behind the scenes in a variety of positions until the start of the 2024 season, when it was discovered that Ohtani’s former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, had stolen nearly $17 million from the superstar. Since then, Ireton has become best known as the English-speaking world’s conduit to the game’s most important player, but he shoulders numerous other responsibilities as the team’s “director of Japanese player operations and strategy.”
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“Honestly, it’s been incredibly helpful to have a guy like Will Ireton around, who’s kind of done all of it,” McGuiness said.
Ireton, effectively, is fluent in three languages: English, Japanese and baseball. That’s why he always accompanies Prior during in-game mound visits with Ohtani, Sasaki and Yamamoto. He’s typically present whenever any of that trio throws bullpens or flatgrounds before games to help ensure that pitch-data information gets relayed effectively. Ireton wears a multitude of hats for the Dodgers: confidante, media consultant, cultural liaison, player development analyst and, of course, interpreter. He has played a significant role in many of the franchise’s maneuvers in the Japanese market, from the onboarding of Ohtani to the recruitment of Sasaki.
Will Ireton (far left), the Dodgers’ director of Japanese player operations and strategy, has been instrumental in helping Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki thrive in L.A. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
(Harry How via Getty Images)
Ohtani, now in his eighth big-league season, has grown less dependent on Ireton when it comes to interacting with teammates and coaches. Yamamoto, whose sister is an English teacher in Japan, is somewhere in the middle, while Sasaki, still a rookie, remains more reliant on an interpreter.
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Communication has been particularly important with the 23-year-old Sasaki, who, given his age, was much less of a finished product than most of his countrymen when making the leap to MLB. Overflowing with talent, Sasaki underperformed in his final two years in NPB. During his free-agent sweepstakes, he specifically asked interested clubs how they intended to help him recapture his fastball velocity. The Dodgers and their renowned player development apparatus, unsurprisingly, made a strong pitch.
Still, it took some time for Sasaki to build trust in his new employer. The tumultuous nature of his rookie season, which saw him hit the injured list in May due to a shoulder issue, further complicated matters. But L.A.’s pitching group was intentional about taking a relatively hands-off approach with their new phenom during the first chunk of this year. It is, after all, easier to implement mechanical, strategic changes if the player first experiences failure his own way.
“Any new player that you acquire, it takes a little while to build up trust. We didn’t try to push it too early,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman told The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya about Sasaki. “We knew that he was a guy that was accustomed to doing things a certain way, and we were going to embrace that.”
Through the process, the Dodgers trusted their infrastructure — specifically, their ability to navigate a cultural and language barrier to help a pitcher improve. It was something they had accomplished successfully the year prior with Yamamoto, helping him overcome a relatively underwhelming first half during his debut campaign in 2024. And this year, the club also deftly steered Ohtani back to being the frontline arm he’d been in Anaheim for so many years.
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So when Sasaki, after a handful of poor Triple-A outings in late August and early September, approached the Dodgers looking for help, the team was willing and able. A week of introspection and video review at the team’s spring training facility with Hill, the pitching director, led to a key mechanical adjustment that unlocked Sasaki’s lost velocity and led to his shocking ascension into a playoff game-changer for Los Angeles’ undermanned bullpen.
“The goal was to come back fully healthy and just fully ready to pitch again,” Sasaki told reporters via an interpreter during the NLDS. “I was cognizant that there could be that possibility that I may not pitch in the regular season again. There’s been a lot of support staff, coaching staff, the people around me who helped me get to where I am today. So, yes, very grateful for that.”
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Although Sasaki struggled in NLCS Game 1 against Milwaukee, his overall postseason numbers are fabulous: 7 innings, 1 earned run, 2 hits, 6 strikeouts and, most importantly, just 2 walks. Meanwhile, Yamamoto, who was an All-Star this season, looks like one of the best pitchers on the planet, fresh off the first complete game in the MLB postseason since 2017. And Ohtani, once again fully healthy and overpowering on the mound, has a chance to pitch the Dodgers to an NLCS sweep in Game 4 on Friday at Dodger Stadium.
It’s all a testament to the juggernaut the Dodgers have built.
Yes, the bottomless cache of money helps, but this organization also deserves credit for its ability to get the most out of the players it recruits. The Dodgers are intentional about the environment they foster for their Japanese players, both in the locker room and in their relationships with coaches. After all, Los Angeles’ well-renowned coaches are only as good as their ability to communicate. That’s the secret sauce. So much of coaching and player development is meeting the players — and their interpreters — where they are.
Could Savage emulate his old Wales boss by managing in the Premier League or at international level one day?
Wrexham-born Savage, who won 39 caps as a player, says he is currently “a million miles away” from managing Wales or any Football League side, but would like to take charge of his country at some point.
Savage certainly has a useful mentor at Forest Green – fellow Welshman Mark Bowen, who used to coach him with Wales and Blackburn as Hughes’ number two, and is now director of football at the Gloucestershire club.
“Robbie is a very driven person and a real student of the game,” said Bowen, who played a key role in Savage’s appointment as manager at The New Lawn.
“He hasn’t got a lot of outside interests other than football. He watches it, he reads it, he studies it.
“The chairman [Dale Vince] was convinced at the start Robbie could and should be the man for Forest Green Rovers. We’ve brought in a lot of new players, around 15, and we thought it would take a while for it to settle down.”
WInning eight and drawing five of their first thirteen games before losing for the first time against Rochdale last weekend came as a pleasant surprise.
“We certainly didn’t expect to hit the ground running as we have,” added Bowen.
“I look at people who have had chances at higher leagues and better clubs and ask, ‘Are they any different to a Robbie Savage?’ Ultimately you’ve got to win football matches and he’s doing that.
“There’s nothing stopping him going to a higher level – hopefully with Forest Green Rovers.”
Having spent most of his coaching career working alongside Hughes, Bowen believes the former Wales and Manchester United striker was not given the credit he deserved for managing six top-flight clubs over a period of 14 years.
Hughes was denied his best chance of Premier League and Champions League silverware when City, flush from their initial Middle Eastern buyout, sacked him in 2009 after 18 months in charge and replaced him with Roberto Mancini.
“I always feel that Mark got a bad lot of it. The day Mark got sacked by Man City they were lying sixth in the Premier League and in the semi-finals of the League Cup,” said Bowen.
“We used to compare ourselves to the likes of David Moyes and Big Sam [Allardyce]. For a long period, you could arguably look at Mark’s record and it was better than those two.
“If you look at the career of Mark Hughes in the Premier League, it stands up with most people. I certainly feel he deserves more credit.”
OSAKA, Japan (AP) — Naomi Osaka pulled out of her quarterfinal match at the Japan Open on Friday because of a left leg injury.
Her withdrawal ahead of the match resulted in Jaqueline Cristian advancing to the semifinals on a walkover, the WTA Tour said.
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Tournament organizers said top-seeded Osaka hadn’t recovered from the injury sustained late in her second-round match. It will be Cristian’s third semifinal appearance of the year and her first on a surface other than clay.
Before the injury, Osaka had wins over Wakana Sonobe and 2024 champion Suzan Lamens.
After splitting the first two sets with Lamens, Osaka took a 5-0 lead in the third. But during a rally with Lamens serving at 0-5 and 30-15, Osaka pulled up with an apparent issue with her left leg. She won the point after Lamens sent a backhand wide but requested a medical timeout after the next point.
Osaka, a four-time major winner, returned to the court with her left thigh wrapped and limitations in her movement but was able to close out on her third match point.
Chourio sustained the injury on a foul ball against Dodgers reliever Blake Treinen. After swinging, the 21-year-old immediately started hopping away from the batter’s box and grabbing at the back of his right leg. The TNT broadcast speculated that he could have cramped up, but there were concerns about a worse aggravation of his hamstring injury.
After getting some attention from trainers, Chourio hopped on one foot into the Brewers’ dugout and onto the clubhouse.
Brewers manager Pat Murphy confirmed to reporters after the game that Chourio experienced “continual” cramps and the team hopes he can be ready for Game 4 on Friday:
“Chourio had continual cramps in his hamstring. He feels like he’s going to be OK, so I’m hopeful. He’s got an IV going right now. We’ll hope he’s OK.”
“It was a cramp, just a cramp. I think I tried to pull the trigger a little too hard there, and maybe that’s what caused it … Right now, I feel physically good, and I think tomorrow I can play.”
The Brewers will certainly want Chourio at full strength on Friday. The 21-year-old has easily been their best hitter of the postseason, entering Game 3 slashing .320/.333/.640 with two homers and eight RBI in seven games. He also hit Milwaukee’s only home run of the series, a leadoff blast against Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 2.
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Concerns about that hamstring, though, have plagued Chourio for months. He sustained the injury on July 29 while legging out a triple and landed on the injured list on Aug. 1. He didn’t return until Aug. 30 and struggled in September, slashing .200/.262/.337. He aggravated the injury in Game 1 of the NLDS, too, but didn’t miss any time.
Milwaukee can only hope it’s a similar story this time, as the team is already facing a tall task.
The Brewers are likely going to need Jackson Chourio if they want to pull off a comeback for the ages. (Kirby Lee-Imagn Images)
(IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect / Reuters)
After posting the best record in the regular season and going 6-0 against the Dodgers, the Brewers have run into a concrete wall against the postseason incarnation of the Dodgers. The L.A. rotation has mauled one of MLB’s best offenses through three games, with Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow combining to throw 22 1/3 innings with seven hits allowed, two runs, four walks and 25 strikeouts.
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The Dodgers’ bullpen was supposed to be a weak point the Brewers could exploit, but Snell and Yamamoto limited that opening to one inning total in Games 1 and 2. Glasnow’s comparatively short outing (5 2/3 innings) could have given Milwaukee the runway it needed, but the quartet of Alex Vesia, Blake Treinen, Anthony Banda and Roki Sasaki combined to post 3 1/3 scoreless innings, striking out four and allowing just one baserunner.
This Brewers’ offense was the most patient in MLB this season and one of the best at making contact. They’re an annoying bunch for opposing hitters when everything is working, but winning on the margins means little when you’re being overwhelmed by a high-powered, high-priced group of starting pitchers.
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And now, Milwaukee will have to beat the highest-power, highest-priced arm just to avoid a sweep. Shohei Ohtani is scheduled to take the mound in Game 4 against another potential bullpen game for the Brewers, with José Quintana likely to be the bulk guy. Even if they beat Ohtani, the Brewers still have to beat the same three starters who have already dominated them.
It’s a dire position for a group that had rolled through 2025 with continuous joy to this point.
Bryce Underwood isn’t your typical freshman. The first-year Michigan football quarterback was the No. 1 player in the country as a recruit, and now he has half a season’s worth of experience.
He’s shown ability perhaps beyond what’s ever been seen by a Wolverines signal caller, and though not every play goes according to plan (Michigan has one of the highest wide receiver drop rates in the country, and the offensive line has intermittently done him any favors), but Underwood has shown he can make the right reads more often than not while putting the ball where it’s supposed to go.
And his offensive coordinator, Chip Lindsey, is happy with where he’s at in this stage of development.
“Well, I think he’s played really well for a freshman, honestly,” Lindsey said. “Again, there’s a handful of plays in each game, and we all want it back. I don’t care if you’re him or you’re a four-year starter or whatever.
“But no, I think I’m really pleased with the progress he’s made. From where he was when he got here to now, that’s a big jump. And the best thing about him is he wants to be really good, and he’s always trying to improve and get better. You see him here all the time, staying early and late, trying to get extra film and stuff. So again, it’s just a maturation process of him getting more and more comfortable and being a first-year starter. And I think you see that around the country, whether you’re a freshman or you’re maybe in the third year in school, and now you’ve become the starter. I think there’s some growth there that they all make, but yeah, I like what he’s doing so far, for sure.”
One thing that Lindsey likes thus far is Underwood’s decision-making. Given that this is a major jump from what he faced at the high school level, it’s impressive what he’s been able to do week-by-week.
“Yeah, he’s doing great. I mean, there’s a couple — I think there’s five plays, six plays maybe,” Lindsey said. “The other night, he probably wished he had it back after watching the film with him. But for a guy his age and the experience he has, I think he’s pretty good.
“These defensive coordinators do a better job than ever of showing one look and getting to something else, that’s just something you gotta deal with. And it comes with experience. But yeah, no, I thought he did a lot of really good things. I mean, the turnover, obviously, in the red zone, something that really sticks out, taking the sack. We weren’t quite in the red zone on both, but we were in the score zone, which is right outside of that. With our kicker, we can’t make those mistakes. And he understands that, we’ll clean that up. But no, I thought he was really good, other than a few things here and there.”
The Wolverines aren’t staying static when it comes to the palette that they’re offering Underwood. His menu is growing as he continues to understand the game, and even though teams are doing what they can to stall him out each week, Lindsey sees continual growth from his quarterback.
And with that, he feels like by season’s end, he could be truly special.
“Some of the RPO stuff, I think he pulled through the other night because the look was for that, which is good,” Lindsey said. “And some teams play those, obviously, everybody plays them a little different. But yeah, I definitely think so. I think as we get more and more advanced and the season keeps going, I hope — hopefully, we’ll have some more opportunities for those guys.”
Underwood’s next chance to improve will come on Saturday with a 5-1 Washington team coming to The Big House. The game will be on Fox with a 12:10 p.m. EDT kickoff.
“Stool Presidente” is coming to Provo, but the company he founded won’t be joining him this time around.
Dave Portnoy, the founder and owner of Barstool Sports, will be in attendance at Saturday’s football rivalry matchup between BYU and Utah as one of the panelists on Fox’s “Big Noon Kickoff” pregame show.
For six select games throughout the season, the “Barstool College Football Show” will travel to the “Big Noon” destination and broadcast live leading up to Fox’s pregame show, with Portnoy appearing on both programs.
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When “Big Noon” came to Salt Lake City on Sept. 20 for Utah’s clash with Texas Tech, the Barstool show came along as well.
But Barstool won’t be returning to the Beehive State this weekend, as this is not one of the six games that their show will tag along with “Big Noon” for this year.
Some fans online had begun to speculate whether the absence of Barstool’s show in Provo this weekend had been influenced by some sort of “ban” from BYU.
When asked about the situation on X, Portnoy took the opportunity to squash the rumors.
“BYU did not ban Barstool,” Portnoy wrote in a post to X Thursday afternoon. “In fact quite the opposite. ”(BYU) requested the show. We only do six a year with (Big Noon Kickoff). “Just wasn’t in the cards but by all indications (BYU) really wanted (the Barstool show) and were even willing to offset the extra costs as long as we didn’t swear.”
BYU did not ban Barstool. In fact quite the opposite. They requested the show. We only do 6 a year with @BNKonFOX Just wasn’t in the cards but by all indications they really wanted it and were even willing to offset the extra costs as long as we didn’t swear https://t.co/Qo4Hcbye3m
Barstool Sports is known for crude humor and profanity on its programs. BYU is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with the school’s honor code including the “avoidance of profane and vulgar language.”
To make it clear that there is no bad blood between BYU and Barstool, Portnoy added that he lobbied “strongly” for “Big Noon” to come to Provo this weekend and added a photo of him on a flight out to the game.
Similar to his visit to Salt Lake City — which he said was his first time ever coming to the state of Utah — Portnoy is expected to sample various pizza restaurants in the Provo area for his famous “One Bite” pizza review videos.
Additionally, Portnoy often goes to the campus bookstore of each school he visits, having said Utah’s “gets the award for best bookstore I’ve been in so far.”
The competitive spirit of the rivalry apparently bleeds into each school’s bookstore, as Cougar fans have claimed to Portnoy that the BYU Store is superior.
BYU bookstore is miles better. Head down to Provo.
