Republic of Ireland's Ebosele joins Turkish club
Ebosele was recalled from his loan spell at Watford by parent club Udinese on Thursday after scoring one goal in his 18 Championship appearances for the Hornets this season.
The 22-year-old only played a full 90 minutes on two occasions and has not started a game since Watford's 1-0 win over Bristol City in November.
The former Bray Wanderers youth player moved to Udinese from Derby County in the summer of 2022 and played 50 games for the Italian side.
He made his Republic of Ireland debut in the closing stages of a 2-0 defeat against France in 2023 and has since won six more caps for his country.
The versatile Wexford native can operate in midfield as well as full-back and joins an Istanbul Basaksehir side who are seventh in the Super Lig.
All January's deals in one place on our dedicated page.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
16 minutes ago
- Yahoo
NASCAR playoff standings: Who's above points cutline before Daytona race? Who's in danger?
William Byron clinched the NASCAR regular-season championship at Richmond Raceway last weekend, but that's not the biggest Cup Series standings storyline entering the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway. Fourteen of the 16 postseason spots are occupied, having been taken by drivers who scored at least one victory during the first 25 races. With one event to go, only two positions remain up for grabs. Tyler Reddick and Alex Bowman possess those 15th and 16th spots — for now. A win by a driver outside the playoff bubble, like Austin Dillon snatched at Richmond, could end one of their hopes, allowing just one driver to reach the playoffs on points. Bowman sits 60 points above the cutline. Chris Buescher follows in 17th. Byron secured the regular-season title by placing 12th during the Cook Out 400. The lone man who could've caught him, Chase Elliott, finished last after a crash. Byron earned 15 playoff bonus points as a result. Here is the full picture. NASCAR playoff standings: Alex Bowman, Chris Buescher on the bubble Denny Hamlin (4 wins) Shane van Gisbergen (4 wins) Kyle Larson (3 wins) Christopher Bell (3 wins) William Byron (2 wins) Chase Elliott (1 win) Chase Briscoe (1 win) Ryan Blaney (1 win) Bubba Wallace (1 win) Joey Logano (1 win) Ross Chastain (1 win) Austin Cindric (1 win) Josh Berry (1 win) Austin Dillon (1 win) Tyler Reddick (89 points above cutline) Alex Bowman (+60) Chris Buescher (60 below cutline) Ryan Preece (–94) Kyle Busch (–148) Ty Gibbs (–173) AJ Allmendinger (–181) Brad Keselowski (–189) Carson Hocevar (–197) Michael McDowell (–207) Erik Jones (–213) John Hunter Nemechek (–226) Zane Smith (-244) Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (–251) Daniel Suárez (-252) Justin Haley (–296) Todd Gilliland (-297) Ty Dillon (-313) Noah Gragson (-376) Cole Custer (-378) Riley Herbst (-392) Cody Ware (-517) (This story was updated to add a video.) This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR standings: Which drivers could reach playoffs on points?
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
How Notre Dame became a more durable national title contender for college football's new era
Editor's note: This article is part of the Program Builders series, focusing on the behind-the-scenes executives and people fueling the future growth of their sports. SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Six months after Notre Dame played for a national championship, Pete Bevacqua turned the floor over to Marcus Freeman. The athletic director greenlit the head coach to ask for anything he wanted. Flanked by deputy athletic director Ron Powlus and general manager Mike Martin at a sitdown in mid-July, Bevacqua wanted to know how the football program could make national title runs more frequently than once per decade. He wanted to know what Notre Dame required to win it all for the first time in 37 years, the longest gap between titles in school history. Advertisement But what could Freeman want? Notre Dame's indoor practice facility has been here barely longer than he has. Its stadium renovations aren't quite a decade old. Shields Hall, the future 150,000-square-foot home of the football operations center, will open next year. Notre Dame just re-signed with NBC at a dollar figure high enough to keep the program independent yet competitive with power-conference foes pulling in north of $50 million per year. Freeman already has an eight-figure contract extension of his own. And the College Football Playoff keeps rewriting its rules in Notre Dame's favor, giving it access to a first-round bye and potentially better at-large odds if the field expands. 'We have what we need,' Bevacqua said. 'Are you gonna play in the national championship game every year? No. Unfortunately, there's too many good teams. But we're gonna keep knocking on that door. 'We have to win national championships in football.' Bevacqua opens meetings by talking about Notre Dame winning a national title, which last happened before he was a freshman student from Connecticut. To administrators, donors and trustees, that's no small change in messaging for a program that has historically gotten in its own way. Ten years ago, school president Rev. John Jenkins was profiled in the New York Times, stating Notre Dame would opt out of big-time college football if the sport moved toward a pay-for-play model. As Jenkins spoke, bulldozers were already working on the $400 million renovation to Notre Dame Stadium, dubbed the Campus Crossroads Project. Notre Dame was slow in adopting pathways for players to enroll a semester early because the administration was concerned about the practice's impact on freshman orientation. Now the school is comfortable changing its academic calendar to accommodate the College Football Playoff. Advertisement Former athletic director Jack Swarbrick said Notre Dame would never have taken its football and gone home, but the school was right to attempt to lead the sport away from its current state of barely regulated name, image and likeness money. It failed. But it was worth a try. 'Wherever the bar moved to, we were gonna move,' Swarbrick said. 'You advocate for the position you'd like to see occur, but in the background you're always saying we're not gonna let Notre Dame football fail.' Yet avoiding failure is not the same thing as winning a national title. There's catching lightning in a bottle for one season, and then there's pouring the foundation on something more durable. That starts with Notre Dame's holy trinity of football buildings: a renovated stadium, an indoor practice facility and a new operations center. Two of those projects are done, and the third could be by the time Notre Dame opens Freeman's fifth season as head coach at Lambeau Field against Wisconsin in 2026. They are all part of the reason Notre Dame believes it can now produce College Football Playoff runs in perpetuity. It might seem like Notre Dame has everything to hold its reservation at college football's adult table for the long run — acknowledging that every coach wants more NIL funding. But faith in where Notre Dame football is headed doesn't require a Hail Mary anymore, and every little bit still helps. The Mendoza College of Business sits off the southwest corner of Notre Dame Stadium and is under construction, like much of the campus. Overhead, the building is shaped like a capital H. When it's done, it will look more like a capital A. Considering the school's profile around Notre Dame, the alphabetical metaphor probably fits. Namesake Tom Mendoza is an ardent supporter of the football program and helped start Notre Dame's NIL collective with Brady Quinn. Business remains one of the most popular majors, both around the campus and within the football team. When the school started a sports analytics program four years ago, it did so with athletes' schedules in mind. Then the faculty made sure the football staff knew about it. When Freeman took the head coaching job, one of his early meetings was a fireside chat with Mendoza College dean Martijn Cremers. But Cremers didn't come to the football facility to talk in front of the team. Freeman went to the business school to talk in front of the student body. Advertisement 'If you went in a laboratory and designed the perfect coach for Notre Dame, it would be Marcus Freeman,' Bevacqua said. 'He's become not just the football coach at Notre Dame, he's become such a part of this university and this campus.' The path by which Notre Dame positioned itself to keep competing for championships didn't start in the business school, but it can be explained there. Among the theories taught and employed at Mendoza is the Flywheel Effect, popularized in the book 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins. Without knowing it, Notre Dame football has made this theory an operating principle. As Collins describes it, imagine a massive wheel mounted on an axle. The job is to get this heavy wheel to spin at a high speed. One push won't do it. Not two. Not 10. Maybe not 100. But once the wheel spins with force, it creates its own momentum. It won't be stopped by minor obstructions (i.e. injuries, staff turnover, even losses). There's no way to know which push was most important in the flywheel reaching this self-sustaining velocity. It's just obvious when it does. The Notre Dame football flywheel is spinning, both inside the program and beyond its walls. As Freeman has grown into the job, the admissions office has become more of a partner with the football program, both in high school recruiting and the transfer portal. Irish coordinator salaries have almost tripled in the past six years. NIL is no longer a roadblock to player acquisition or retention; in general, the Irish don't lose talent they want to keep and rarely miss on portal targets they're desperate to sign. When Freeman needed a new strength coach a year ago, Notre Dame funded an NFL hire. When injuries rocked the Irish roster last season, the program didn't seem to miss a beat. When Bevacqua extended Freeman last December, days before the first-round game against Indiana, he paid him like a coach expected to make the national title game. When Freeman needed a new running backs coach last winter, he pulled Penn State's Ja'Juan Seider, the only position coach in college football with a group better than the Irish. When Notre Dame football needs resources, it doesn't go wanting. Some of this started under Brian Kelly, who professionalized the program to the point it could take a chance on a first-time head coach. Swarbrick got Notre Dame into the right rooms in the construction of the College Football Playoff. Bevacqua got it on the right golf courses, counting Donald Trump, Roger Goodell and Greg Sankey as playing partners this summer. When Notre Dame needed to meet the school's 100-75 fundraising rule for Shields Hall — before breaking ground on a large capital project, 100 percent of the money must be committed and 75 percent must be in hand — the development office went into warp drive before the end of Jenkins' presidential term on June 1, 2024. Dirt moved with six weeks to spare. Advertisement Freeman didn't start this wheel spinning, but he helped it achieve inexorable momentum last winter by beating Georgia and Penn State in a seven-day span. The Sugar Bowl was Notre Dame's first major bowl win in 31 years. The Orange Bowl felt like something bigger, the program's most significant win since the 1993 Game of the Century against Florida State. 'The Georgia win changed everything,' said Mendoza, who watched the Orange Bowl alongside Tony Rice, Notre Dame's last national championship-winning quarterback, and Tim Brown, its last Heisman Trophy winner. 'Notre Dame used to think it could win. Maybe it knew it could win. Now it expects to win. Marcus can sell playing for a national championship and everything else that comes with it at Notre Dame. The kids feel it. The players we're attracting feel it.' Freeman stood at the 50-yard line on a Saturday night in mid-June as Notre Dame hosted 21 official visitors. A dozen of the recruits were already committed. Nine were still up for grabs. Before Freeman talked, the players and their parents — a group that included NFL alumni Larry Fitzgerald, Thomas Davis and Jermichael Finley — watched a video on the stadium's screen showing the parents of former players, including Riley Leonard's, talking about the Notre Dame experience. Within a month, eight of the uncommitted prospects had picked Notre Dame. By the end of summer, the Irish had landed 11 of the 12 uncommitted prospects they'd hosted for official visits, including two 247Composite five-stars in cornerback Khary Adams and tight end Ian Premer. The biggest reasons why Notre Dame believes it can keep knocking on the CFP door are still in high school. With 27 commitments for 2026, Freeman is on track to sign the program's highest-rated recruiting class in 13 years. The Irish are yet to suffer a decommitment after watching 18 walk over the previous three cycles. 'You go into the semifinals game and you're losing starters, putting backups in,' Freeman said, 'but if you don't have the depth that you can put somebody in and get the job done, then all of a sudden that becomes a hole and it becomes a deficiency and you lose.' Advertisement Notre Dame could have fumbled away the goodwill of last season when general manager Chad Bowden left for USC in February. From the start of the CFP to the start of spring practice, Notre Dame landed two commitments, both on the offensive line, hardly a position that requires a recruiting full-court press. Notre Dame also lost presumptive recruiting director Caleb Davis to San Diego State. When Freeman tabbed Mike Martin from the Detroit Lions to become general manager — after an aggressive pursuit of James Blanchard from Texas Tech — he rebooted the recruiting operation alongside new director of recruiting Carter Auman, who graduated from Notre Dame during Freeman's first offseason as head coach. Organization picked up. For all Bowden's energy, he had a habit of giving little warning of what he needed and when he needed it. That start-up approach, move fast and break stuff, had worked. It also felt like the Irish were due for something new. After last season, the program was no longer a startup. It wanted to be a Fortune 500 company. So it had to act like one. There are no leprechaun costumes or gold boomboxes anymore. There's talk of branding and generational wealth, ideas floated about how Notre Dame can become business partners with its players. When Martin sets up calls for professors, alumni or former players with prospects, he produces one-page overviews that include other schools in play, GPA, and parents' professions. They arrive in advance. There's even a text chain for prospects' moms. The entire operation feels buttoned up. 'It's getting the talent,' Bevacqua said. 'Fingers crossed, knock on wood, we are firing on all cylinders right now with recruiting.' And National Signing Day is still four months away. Televisions line the second floor of Notre Dame's indoor practice facility, a gathering space that overlooks the field below. During the second week of August camp, the screens replay Notre Dame's run through the CFP, with highlights of wins against Indiana, Georgia and Penn State. Everyone knows how it all ended against Ohio State. The longest season in school history still lingers around here, as much as Freeman would prefer it didn't. Advertisement 'They're valuable lessons that you learn from last year, but I continue to remind them: 2024 has nothing to do with this 2025 team,' Freeman said. 'Yes, let's utilize the lessons. Let's utilize some of those good and bad things that we learned from last year, but you do that no matter what the previous experience was. They understand that. 'We try to stop talking about that '24 year.' Good luck with that. The last time Notre Dame made the national championship game, the hangover was harsh. So was the realization the Irish weren't as close to the mountaintop as they appeared before kickoff of that 42-14 loss to Alabama. Kelly interviewed with the Philadelphia Eagles, starting quarterback Everett Golson got suspended after spring practice and the program was out of the title chase by late September. Notre Dame ended that season against Rutgers in the Pinstripe Bowl. The Ohio State game felt different. So did everything leading up to it. But when it came for Notre Dame's title shot, the team on the other sideline still had the most talent. 'I would point to depth as the No. 1 difference now,' Swarbrick said. 'Our first D-line was really good that year. Alabama's third D-line was really good. It was all the difference in the world. 'Sport always exposes your weaknesses. If your nutrition program isn't right, if your strength conditioning program isn't right, If recruiting doesn't produce the quality of player and the depth, it always gets exposed. And I think the program is as solid across the board as any time in my memory.' Notre Dame will begin its difficult encore at No. 10 Miami on Sunday night of Labor Day weekend. It will have the national stage to itself, with a first-time starting quarterback and a new defensive coordinator. The Irish added five potential starters in the transfer portal. Behind the practice fields, Shields Hall continues to go up, windows added, bricks laid. The facility stretches an entire block. Advertisement For the first time in a long time, Notre Dame enters a season where winning a national title doesn't feel like a rote talking point. The Irish are betting favorites to return to the CFP and win double-digit games. If they get there, Freeman can lean into last season's experiences. So can his roster. Whether he wants to talk about it in August or not. 'To win a national championship in any sport, you gotta be good; we're good,' Bevacqua said. 'You gotta stay healthy. And no matter how good you are, you're gonna have to get lucky a couple of times. But I really feel we're positioned to keep knocking on that door. 'There is no secret, no doubt, no hesitation that we want to win national championships in football.' The wheel keeps spinning. Program Builders is part of a partnership with Range Rover Sport. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
2025 Tour Championship odds, DFS picks: Can anyone challenge Scottie Scheffler?
The PGA Tour season comes to an end this week at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. The story of the season has been Scottie Scheffler's dominance, and he clinched his fifth win at the BMW Championship last week. Scheffler's chip from off the green on 17 has been replayed more than any other shot of this year's tour. Scheffler's two-season run can only be compared to the greatest ever to play the game. His 12 wins during the 2024 and 2025 PGA Tour seasons have only been matched by Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus. Advertisement Scheffler will be looking to defend his Tour Championship title from 2024 this week, but he will have a tougher time doing so as everyone in the field will be starting the tournament on level terms. The old system was underwhelming for both fans and players. This new system isn't perfect, but at least the best players in the world will have a tougher challenge to test who is at their best to end the season. And, yes, East Lake Golf Club should prove to be a strong test for the players this week. A few recent updates: The 14th hole at East Lake Golf Club has been changed from a Par 5 to a Par 4, and the rough has been lengthened a bit. The greens should be more settled after the changes that Andrew Green put in place in 2024. The key stats I will focus on include driving accuracy, strokes gained on approach, strokes gained on approach from 125 to 150 yards, 3-putt avoidance and strokes gained on difficult Par-70 golf courses that are over 7,400 yards. I will be using weighted strokes gained this week with the stacked field and the challenging course. I will play around with the number of rounds a bit, as I want to play the players who are at their best at this moment. Course: East Lake Golf Club Location: Atlanta Designer: Tom Bendelow (redesigned by Donald Ross, George Cobb, Rees Jones and Andrew Green) Par: 70 Length: 7,490 yards Average green size: 6,238 square feet Past champions: 2024 Scottie Scheffler, 2023 Viktor Hovland, 2022 Rory McIlroy, 2021 Patrick Cantlay, 2020 Dustin Johnson, 2019 Rory McIlroy Rory McIlroy (+850) is looking for his fourth Tour Championship win this week. Scheffler is the betting favorite with very short odds; when the best golfer in the world is a less than 2-to-1 favorite to win a golf tournament, you have to find some value in other spots. McIlroy had some rust to his game last week at the BMW Championship, but seemed to knock it off by the fourth round when he managed to drive a Par-4 green with a 3-wood. He will need to be a little sharper with his wedges to win this week, but I wouldn't be surprised if he wins. Advertisement Viktor Hovland (+2200) has been on fire since his poor first round at the FedEx St. Jude Championship. He has gained over nine strokes combined on approach over his last two tournaments, and he has been positive with the putter for four straight tournaments. He may not be on Michael Kim's Christmas card list this year (knocked Kim out of the Tour Championship with a birdie on the last hole at the BMW Championship), but he would be on mine if he could pull out a win this week. Tommy Fleetwood (+800) doesn't have a win on the PGA Tour, and that is not going to change this week. Fleetwood has been excellent down the stretch of the season and sits second in my power rankings and in my strokes gained weighted over his last 36 rounds. Fleetwood has gained over 10.3 strokes combined on approach over his last two tournaments. He has gained over 15 strokes putting over his last three tournaments. If it weren't for some late Sunday meltdowns and bad luck, he would be coming into this week with multiple wins on tour this season. Betting him this way, we can root for Fleetwood without the inevitable heartbreak. Russell Henley (+1200) comes into this week third on the PGA Tour in proximity to the fairway while hitting the fairway with his drives at almost a 68 percent pace. He has had an excellent season, and his finishes in the playoffs would have been a little better if he had been a little hotter with the putter. He has gained strokes on approach in six straight tournaments. Scottie Scheffler ($13,900) has five wins on the PGA Tour season and is the defending champion coming into this week. He will have Tedd Scott back on his bag this week after winning last week for the first time without Scott on the bag. Fading Scheffler with his form is almost impossible to do. He would have to be priced in the 15k range for me to even think about it. Tommy Fleetwood ($9,900) See above. Advertisement Russell Henley ($9,600) See above. Viktor Hovland ($9,400) See above. Sam Burns ($8,500) gained strokes across the board here in 2023, and he gained over four strokes on approach here last year. Burns has gained strokes on approach in four straight tournaments and is on an absolute heater with the putter, gaining over 12 strokes combined putting in his last two tournaments. J.J. Spaun ($8,100) is making his Tour Championship debut, but the 2025 U.S. Open winner can't be overlooked. He has gained almost 12 strokes combined on approach in the last two weeks and has been a hot putter away from winning. He is well inside the top of my model and is coming in at a nice salary-relief price. Cameron Young ($7,900) has had an excellent end to the PGA Tour season with a win at the Wyndham and then two straight top-11 finishes in the playoffs. He has gained over 12 strokes combined off the tee in his last three tournaments and is one of the hottest putters on the PGA Tour. He struggled with his approach shots and around the greens in his only trip here in 2022, but should have a better showing this week with his current form. Sepp Straka ($7,600) is a must-play every time he is priced in this range. Straka has had such a strong season, and hopefully the issues he had to deal with off the course last week won't affect him this week. He has gained over eight strokes combined on approach in his three trips to East Lake. He will need to drive the ball better than he has at past Tour Championships to make some noise this week. Maverick McNealy ($7,300) gained strokes across the board on Sunday at the BMW Championship, which led to a very nice third-place finish. He is also making his debut at the Tour Championship this week, but could make some noise with his current form. Harris English ($6,900) is priced too low to ignore with how he has played this season. The issue is that he has struggled with his approach shots during the playoffs, which has kept him from having a good end to the season. He has never driven it well here in three trips. I'm going to play him a little less than what it seems the public is this week. Advertisement Akshay Bhatia ($6,700) almost choked his way out of making it to East Lake on Sunday. He couldn't hit a green or make a putt to save his life down the stretch, but somehow made his way to the Tour Championship. I think he will play well this week after getting through all of that pressure on Sunday. It should free him up for a nice finish to the season. His overall game fits this course really well, and his price is nice. Shane Lowry ($6,400) gained strokes everywhere except around the green here last year when he finished T9. He has been struggling a bit to end the year, but this course suits his game pretty well. We need to save some money somewhere, and Lowry seems like a decent choice. I want to play Sungjae Im ($6,200) so bad, but I can't after he lost over 10.7 strokes on approach last week. (Photo of Scottie Scheffler: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
