sport

Lindsey Vonn is less than two months removed from a skiing accident at the Milan-Cortina Olympics that almost resulted in the amputation of her left leg.

She has stopped taking painkillers but is still exhausted.

She is back home in Park City, Utah, but spends nearly all of her time in rehab.

She is 41 and has won four overall World Cup championships, with 84 World Cup wins and three Olympic medals, including gold in the downhill at the 2010 Vancouver Games.

Yet, Vonn would not definitively say that her competitive skiing career is over, during a recent interview with Vanity Fair’s Elise Taylor.

“I don’t like to close the door on anything, because you just never know what’s going to happen,” said Vonn, who appears on the magazine’s cover in a long, black dress with a split that shows her left leg — bandages and all.

“I have no idea what my life will be like in two years or three years or four years. I could have two kids by then. I could have no kids and want to race again. I could live in Europe. I could be doing anything.”

She added: “It’s hard to tell with this injury. It’s so [messed] up.”

Vonn, who returned to racing in late 2024 after nearly six years away from the sport, had two victories and three other podium finishes in her five World Cup races during the most recent season. In December, Vonn announced she would be competing in her “5th and final Olympics!”

“I wanted to win the Olympics, and I wanted to win the downhill title, and I was on track to do both of those things,” Vonn told Vanity Fair.

On Jan. 30, Vonn suffered a complete rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee, with meniscus and bone damage, when she crashed during a downhill race in Crans-Montana, Switzerland.

She decided to compete at the Olympics anyway and had a couple of successful training runs leading up to the Feb. 8 downhill competition.

“I was in the exact mental state that I wanted to be in,” Vonn said. “I was ready to go.”

Unfortunately, her race didn’t last long. Vonn lost control on the first jump, spun sideways in the air, slammed to the ground and needed to be airlifted from the course. Vonn and other skiing experts have said that the ruptured ACL likely had nothing to do with her crash at the Olympics.

Vonn suffered a complex tibia fracture and other major damage. It contributed to a condition called compartment syndrome, which involves excessive pressure building up inside a muscle and possibly can lead to permanent injury or amputation.

Five surgeries later, Vonn is on the road to recovery. She has posted several photos and videos on Instagram as she amps up her fitness routine again. In a March 15 post on X, Vonn wrote that she’s not ready to discuss her skiing future.

“My focus has been on recovering from my injury and getting back to normal life,” she wrote, adding, “I’ll let you know when I decide.”

Vonn did tell Vanity Fair that she’s not crazy about the idea of the catastrophe at the Winter Games being the public’s last impression of her as a skier.

“I don’t want people to hang on this crash and be remembered for that. What I did before the Olympics has never been done before. I was number one in the standings. No one remembers that I was winning.”

HOUSTON — Mike Trout homered to launch what he hopes will be a bounce-back year, leading the Angels to a season-opening 3-0 win over the Houston Astros on Thursday.

Trout also walked three times and played center field for the first time since April 2024. The three-time MVP played 130 games last season, his most since 2019 because of various injuries.

Making his franchise-record 14th opening day start, the 34-year-old Trout broke a scoreless tie in the seventh inning when he sent a 96 mph fastball from reliever AJ Blubaugh (0-1) 403 feet onto the train tracks in left center. It was his fifth opening day homer, also a club record.

The Angels snapped an eight-game road losing streak in season openers, starting 1-0 on the road for the first time since 2013.

Oswald Peraza hit an RBI single in the eighth and Nolan Schanuel homered in the ninth.

José Soriano (1-0) allowed two hits and four walks in six innings while striking out seven. Four relievers completed the three-hitter, with Jordan Romano working the ninth to earn the save in his Angels debut.

Hunter Brown started for Houston and allowed four hits and four walks in 4⅔ innings. He struck out nine.

The Astros went 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position while stranding nine runners.

Houston designated hitter Yordan Alvarez may have been robbed of a home run in the first inning because the retractable roof at Daikin Park was closed. Alvarez hit a towering shot toward the right-field foul pole, but it ricocheted off a horizontal rafter and landed in foul territory.

It was ruled a foul ball. The Astros challenged, and the call was upheld after a review. Alvarez later struck out swinging.

Up next: The teams resume the four-game series on Friday, with lefty Yusei Kikuchi starting for the Angels opposite right-hander Mike Burrows.

On their way into the clubhouse Thursday, Dodgers players were greeted by the World Series championship trophies they won in 2024 and 2025. In center field, Dodgers fans were greeted by oversize replicas of those trophies, the better for taking a selfie.

On social media, the Dodgers unveiled their Opening Day hype video. These were the first words: “What’s wrong with being the bad guy?” At Dodger Stadium, the threepeat hype video was a movie trailer with this tag line: “Great sequels build legendary trilogies.”

To the rest of that country, all that winning and all that spending makes the Dodgers the bad guys. For more than a year, the owners of other major league teams have telegraphed their desire to restrain all that spending, preferably through a salary cap.

How does the owner of the Dodgers feel?

Does baseball truly have a problem?

Sit down, Dodgers fans. You might expect the owner of the Colorado Rockies to say that revenue disparity among teams is so great that competitive balance has been destroyed, and he did.

You might not expect Dodgers owner Mark Walter to say this:

”Here’s what the problem is: Money helps us win. We can’t win all the time. We’ve got to have some parity,” Walter told me.

“So we’ve got to come up with something that will give us some parity.”

Don’t take this the wrong way: Walter will always want to win. But the owners, Walter included, are increasingly united in the belief that revenue disparity is the primary explanation why a small-market team has not won the World Series in 11 years.

The Dodgers are making more money from Uniqlo in naming rights this season than some teams are making from local television rights and the Dodgers also are making 10 times as much on their SportsNet LA deal.

The Dodgers generated an estimated $850 million in revenue last season, according to Forbes. Their opening day opponent, the Arizona Diamondbacks, generated an estimated $324 million.

If Walter were to support the pursuit of a salary cap, the owners’ vote could be unanimous. For now, negotiations with the players’ union have not started. There is no formal owners’ proposal on the table, so there is nothing for Walter to approve or reject.

“We’ll have to see what it is,” Walter said.

The players’ union does not dispute the revenue disparity. The union believes the owners should solve that issue among themselves, by sharing more revenue and adding incentives for lower-revenue teams that win. The union also believes “competitive balance” is a fig leaf for “cost control that increases owner profits.”

In the NFL, which has a salary cap, either the Kansas City Chiefs or the New England Patriots has played in the AFC championship in each of the last 15 years.

And, even if the Dodgers are the bad guys, they are not bad for business. The Dodgers hold five of the top 12 spots on baseball’s list of best-selling jerseys: Shohei Ohtani at No. 1, Yoshinobu Yamamoto at No. 2, Mookie Betts at No. 5, Freddie Freeman at No. 7 and Kiké Hernandez at No. 12.

The last two World Series, in which the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays, juiced television ratings across the country and around the world. The World Baseball Classic dominated headlines and social media content at what is usually a sleepy time for baseball.

All of that momentum would be at risk if owners shut down the sport in “salary cap or bust” collective bargaining, crossing their fingers that players would surrender as soon as they started missing paychecks next spring.

It is against that backdrop that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts encouraged fans to appreciate this season opener. With potential armageddon looming in negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement, who knows when the next season might actually open?

“I understand that,” Roberts said Thursday, “in the sense of, this is where the CBA is at, as far as the expiration. And I do agree: Enjoy it, because nothing is guaranteed. It’s going to be a great year and I hope everyone pours their spirits and their joy into this season, because it’s going to be a great one. We’ll just figure out where it goes after that.”

And, if it goes haywire after that, the Dodgers inevitably will be blamed.

“That,” Roberts said with a laugh, “seems like it’s always been the case recently.”

What would Walter tell Dodgers fans concerned that what might be in the best interest of baseball might not be in the best interest of the Dodgers?

“I don’t want to hurt us,” Walter said. “We’ll be fine.”

With whatever happens?

“Yeah,” he said. “We’ll be good.”

Dzeko has been a crucial player for his country since his international debut in 2007, and has 73 goals in 147 appearances – scoring every year for the past two decades.

Until as recently as last year he was still reaching double figures for goals at club level.

Last summer, he returned to Serie A to sign for Fiorentina and, at the time, dismissed suggestions he was slowing down with age.

“Age doesn’t matter, I’m not a write-off yet,” he said.

“Behind all this is the work that a 39-year-old has to do, even more than others. I feel good, we’re working hard, and this will bring us satisfaction later.”

That move did not quite work out and Dzeko soon found himself out of favour at the club, having failed to score in 11 Serie A games.

But a switch to Schalke in Bundesliga 2 in January has reinvigorated him – possibly at just the right time as the World Cup approaches – and he has scored six goals in eight games for the German side.

On what the future holds for him, Dzeko said recently: “I’ll listen to my body in the summer but at the moment, I still feel very good, and I still score goals.”

But if he does help his country qualify for the World Cup, it is very likely that conversation with his body will be delayed a little longer.

France beat Brazil 2-1 in a friendly in the United States, in what was a potential dress rehearsal for World Cup 2026 final.

France forward Kylian Mbappe showed no ill effects of his left knee injury when he broke free for a goal to give France an early lead on its way to a 2-1 victory over Brazil in a World Cup tuneup between two of the world’s top teams.

With a crowd of 66,215 heavily favouring Brazil, Mbappe and Hugo Ekitike gave France a 2-0 lead on Thursday on the same pitch where they will play their final group stage game of this summer’s World Cup, against Norway and Erling Haaland. Bremer cut the deficit to 2-1 in the 78th minute.

The friendly went off without any evident hiccups despite the simmering feud between the town of Foxborough and World Cup organisers over almost $8m in security costs. The sides reached an agreement two weeks ago in which the organising committee promised to make the payment in advance, and the town approved the necessary entertainment licence.

That was expected to be the last remaining obstacle to the world’s biggest sporting event arriving in this 20,000-person suburb tucked between Boston and Providence, Rhode Island, that swells to three times its size for New England Patriots games. To accommodate FIFA requirements, a grass field has replaced the artificial turf that had been used for the NFL’s Patriots and the New England Revolution of Major League Soccer.

The crowd was the second-largest to watch a football match at Gillette Stadium, behind only a 2007 friendly between Brazil and Mexico. It was speckled with fans in Brazilian yellow kits, with just a few French flags waving to celebrate Mbappe’s goal. (The media dining room was more neutral, with madeleines, macarons and eclairs alongside Brazilian brigadeiro, pudim and mousse de maracuja.)

Also in the house were Coach Joe Mazzulla and players from the NBA’s Boston Celtics, with forward Jayson Tatum taking part in the pregame coin toss alongside Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey.

A former Paris Saint-Germain and current Real Madrid star, Mbappe sprained his left knee in December but played through January before missing almost a month. He was used as a substitute in Real Madrid’s last two matches but started on Thursday.

Mbappe said on Monday that his injury was “truly behind me”. (Reports that said the team examined the wrong knee were false, Mbappe said at a news conference in Foxborough on Wednesday.)

And he showed it in the 32nd minute when Ousmane Dembele delivered a through ball that left no one between Mbappe and the goalkeeper. The 2018 World Cup champion and 2022 Golden Boot winner tapped it ahead once before chipping it over the keeper to make it 1-0.

France took a 2-0 lead in the 65th minute when Ekitike, Liverpool’s top scorer this season, converted on a pass from Michael Olise in the penalty area. Mbappe left for a substitute immediately afterwards.

After France’s Dayot Upamecano was sent off in the 55th minute for taking down a player with a clear path to the goal, a card that was upgraded from yellow to red on video review, Brazil cut the deficit to 2-1 when Bremer redirected a cross from Luiz Henrique past France keeper Mike Maignan.

The game also featured a mid-half “cooling break” that enabled players to rest and hydrate – even though the temperature in early spring New England was in the mid-60s (15 degrees Celsius).

After a heatwave during last year’s Club World Cup, FIFA announced that all games in the 2026 World Cup would include the break, regardless of the temperature on the pitch.

Should France and Brazil both win their groups at the World Cup, then the first time they can meet at the tournament will be in the final itself.

SACRAMENTO — The UCLA women’s basketball team hasn’t lost a game in 120 days. In that time, the Bruins have outscored opponents by a total of 806 points and just one other school — UConn — has gone without a loss during the same stretch.

Yet somehow, the No. 1 seed in the Sacramento 2 region of the NCAA tournament hasn’t captured the same momentum and praise as the other three top seeds who have muscled their way into the Sweet 16.

UCLA (33-1) will play No. 4 Minnesota (24-8) at 4:30 p.m. PDT Friday in Sacramento. The game will air on ESPN. Entering the matchup, is UCLA’s less dominant NCAA tournament run a cause for concern? Or is a win a win when it comes to March?

“Each game is going to present different adversity points,” UCLA coach Cori Close said. “And I think that we don’t look at it as getting back to something. We look at it as everything is a learning opportunity. ‘What does that teach us? How does that make us better? What kinds of things do we need to tighten up?’”

UCLA forwards Angela Dugalic and Gabriela Jaquez double team California Baptist guard Filipa Barros during the first round of the NCAA tournament at Pauley Pavilion on March 21.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

As the No. 2 overall seed in the tournament, UCLA is on a projected collision course with the top overall seed, undefeated UConn, on the other side of the bracket.

But the Bruins, who have lost just once this year, also might have to hit another gear to get to to beat formidable teams still in the tournament field.

UCLA punched its ticket to the NCAA tournament with a Big Ten title game win over Iowa by 51 points. Since then, the Bruins haven’t achieved that kind of dominance even against lesser opponents.

Iowa, which flamed out to No. 10 seed Virginia in the second round last week, could have simply been less prepared than other NCAA tournament teams. But the Bruins do acknowledge they also have room to improve.

“I think we’re a really steady team, and obviously we’re gonna do whatever we can to win, and it changes every game, because of different teams,” said graduate forward Angela Dugalic. “But at the same time, I do feel like I have more to give, and that’s not a bad thing.”

UCLA defeated No. 16 seed California Baptist 96-43 before an 87-68 win against No. 8 seed Oklahoma State, leading the Cowgirls wire-to-wire but getitng outscored in the second half. The Bruins led the Lancers by just 10 points at the half of the first-round contest.

A 19-point win is a dominant showing for any team, but with the rest of the No. 1 seeds winning by at least 40 points, has UCLA shown that it is at the same level?

“I don’t really look at it that way from those two games,” Close said. “I just think everything is measuring ourselves against the championship standards that we’ve set, and those are process standards. And so if we fall short in an area, it’s how we get back to what we know how to do and what’s under our control.”

UCLA guard Kiki Rice points across the court while talking with coach Cori Close during an NCAA tournament game against California Baptist on March 21 at Pauley Pavilion.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

UCLA has the second-largest spread among the No. 1 seeds entering the Sweet 16 round, with oddsmakers favoring the Bruins to beat Minnesota by 18.5 points. UConn leads all teams as a 27.5-point favorite to beat No. 4 seed North Carolina. The Bruins haven’t won a game by fewer than 10 points since a 69-66 overtime victory over Ohio State on Feb. 8.

Minnesota has the ninth-best NET of remaining teams, which is better than the other teams matched up against No. 1 seeds (North Carolina is 19th, Oklahoma is 13th and Kentucky is 16th).

During UCLA’s 76-58 win over Minnesota in January, Kiki Rice scored a season-high 25 points. Since then, the Gophers have gone 12-4 while winning games by an average just under nine points while UCLA has gone 17-0 with an average margin of victory of 26.9.

“No team is perfect ever,” UCLA guard Gianna Kneepkens said. “So I think [we’re] just making sure that we know what to do, and we know what it takes to be our best. So just making sure we can do that 40 minutes every game is going to be the thing we take away [from the first and second rounds.]”

Since UCLA beat Minnesota, the Gophers took down No. 5 seed Ole Miss, a team that many picked as a tournament sleeper and shot 46.2% from the field during the season.

“They’ve gotten better, but so have we and once the postseason comes, the best teams, the most successful teams, they find ways to just continue to get better,” Rice said. “To stay true to that process, but to take it up to a next level. Because at this time of the year, it’s do or die, and you gotta compete really hard.”

UCLA’s 28.6 average margin of victory is fifth in the country behind the tournament’s other No. 1 seeds and No. 2 seed LSU, a team the Bruins might face Sunday in the Elite Eight.

LSU, the highest-scoring team in the nation, faces No. 3 Duke on Friday night. If UCLA and LSU win, it would set up the third consecutive season they have met in the NCAA tournament. UCLA won the matchup last season 72-65 to get to the Final Four, while the Tigers upset the Bruins in the 2024 Sweet 16 en route to a national title.

The Bruins dominated Duke back in November, earning an 89-59 win immediately after their sole loss of the season to Texas. Gabriela Jaquez took over that game with 23 points.

But March tests are far more challenging that anything the Bruins have faced to date. The veteran UCLA team is confident it can keep evolving as it chases a national title.

“I think [improving] just requires us to take things to a different place and be more aggressive and dictate in all aspects,” Dugalic said. “That’s the beauty of it, we can get there.”

Prem clubs have agreed to introduce a ‘salary floor’ – a minimum amount each team must spend on players’ wages – from next season in an attempt to keep the top flight as closely fought as possible.

Each club will be obliged to spend £5.4m a season on talent.

The salary cap – a £6.4m limit on squad spending, albeit with ‘credits’ on offer for home-grown talent and other factors which stretch the restriction to £7.8m – will remain the same.

Failure to spend up to the salary floor will be punished by a fine equivalent to the difference between a club’s squad spend and the lower limit, incentivising clubs to invest in their squads.

Several clubs are likely to need to pay more to meet the new lower figure.

Last season, Bristol boss Pat Lam estimated that eventual champions and the Bears’ semi-final conquerors Bath spent “close to £3m more than we have on our squad”., external

While bottom side Newcastle have brought in a raft of new players since energy drink giant Red Bull took over in August, they are still thought to be well short of a £5.4m wage bill.

While such prescriptions over squad spending are rare in UK sport, they are more common overseas.

The NRL, Australia’s elite rugby league competition, requires its clubs to spend at least 95% of its salary cap figure. In American Football’s NFL, it is set at 90%.

Prem Rugby hopes that, with relegation to be formally scrapped next season, greater payroll parity will improve the competitive balance of the top flight.

A divide has opened up in the table this season with four teams – Newcastle Red Bulls, Harlequins, Gloucester and Sale – cut adrift of the play-off race with seven rounds of the season to go.

Sixth-placed Saracens, who are eight points off the top four, could have their hopes of extending their campaign all but ended this weekend if they lose to leaders Northampton.

Introducing a salary floor is reflective of renewed confidence in the league’s future, with billionaire industrialist James Dyson having become co-owner of Bath this month and further investment in Prem clubs believed to be in the pipeline.

The league intends to add two teams to its current 10 in the 2029-30 season if a wrangle with the second-tier Champ can be smoothed out.

While it has been agreed that any new entrants to the Prem must complete a campaign in the Champ first, it is yet to be agreed how high a team would have to finish to demonstrate their on-field credentials, with Prem Rugby chief executive Simon Massie-Taylor believing a top-six finish and qualification for the Champ play-offs “would be the natural thing”.

Massie-Taylor is keen to build on this weekend’s ‘big game’ concept, with Everton’s new Hill Dickinson Stadium earmarked as a possible host for neutral-venue Prem semi-finals from 2029.

Saracens are staging Saturday’s match against Saints at the 63,000-capacity Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, while Gloucester are hosting Leicester at Villa Park and Bristol will take their match against Harlequins to Cardiff’s Principality Stadium on the same day.

Harlequins put on two of their regular-season fixtures at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium, which also hosts June’s Prem final.

Jannik Sinner claimed his 29th and 30th consecutive sets at ATP Masters 1,000 events as he cruised past American Frances Tiafoe into the semi-finals of the Miami Open.

The Italian world number two, who broke Novak Djokovic’s 10-year record of 24 on Monday, never looked back after breaking Tiafoe in the opening game – going on to win 6-2 6-2 in 71 minutes.

The world number 20 simply had no response to a dominant dislay from Sinner, who dropped only nine points on serve across the two sets.

Sinner, who has won four Grand Slam titles, will face either Germany’s world number four Alexander Zverev or Argentina’s Francisco Cerundolo in the last four.

“I felt like I was serving quite well in the important moments,” said Sinner said on Sky Sports.

“I thought he might be a bit tired because he has had tough matches here a couple of three set matches so I tried to make it physical in the beginning and that helped for sure.”

The other semi-final will pit France’s Arthur Fils against Czech Jiri Lehecka.

Sinner is aiming to become the first man since Roger Federer in 2017 to complete the coveted ‘Sunshine Double’ of winning Indian Wells and the Miami Open in the same year.

The 24-year-old has now reached the semi-finals in four of his five appearance in the Miami Open and triumphed in the tournament in 2024.

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell. The long journey to the postseason begins today.

As we embark on the 12th season of this newsletter, there are certain things, like death and taxes, that are guaranteed. Here they are.

—The Dodgers will charge way too much to park in their poorly designed, poorly lit parking lot.

—Shohei Ohtani will have a game where he strikes out 10 and hits multiple home runs. No one will be able to explain how he does this until we learn he was actually sent here by the aliens from “Project Hail Mary.”

—Ohtani will go hitless for three-to-four games in a row and have a bad pitching outing during the same time, leading to some to say he is overpaid.

—Will Smith will catch at least 130 games and be in the conversation for NL MVP.

—The Padres will be better than most are saying and their fans will approach the games with the Dodgers as if it is their World Series.

—The Rockies will be terrible again.

—Teoscar Hernández will continue to struggle as a fielder, but people won’t care as much as his bat will be rejuvenated.

—A pitcher no one has heard of will be signed by the Dodgers off the waiver wire. He will appear in a game and pitch great, maybe even getting the win. The following week, he will be designated for assignment.

—Mookie Betts will win the Gold Glove at short, and while he won’t reach his previous heights at the plate, he will hit better than last season.

—Andy Pages will slump at some point and fans will demand that Ryan Ward, who is hitting .350 with about a million homers in the minors, get a chance. He won’t get a chance and Pages will recover.

—Fans will complain that Joe Davis takes too many games off and isn’t a true Dodger like Vin Scully was, even though Vin took just as many games off for national duties.

—The music at Dodger Stadium will continue to be so loud that even the aliens from “A Quiet Place” will complain. (Editor’s note: Two outer space aliens references in one newsletter. What is wrong with this guy?)

—The most worn former Dodger jersey worn by fans at the stadium will continue to be… Fernando Valenzuela‘s. And it will be for many years to come.

—Max Muncy will look like the worst hitter in baseball for an extended period, then he will hit like Babe Ruth.

—Dalton Rushing will be a decent backup for Smith and will hit well enough that he can spell Freddie Freeman at first base on occasion.

—Freeman will hit .300 again in what will be his last great season at the plate.

—The Dodgers will continue to “give away” games during the season in order to be ready for the postseason. For example, they will allow a reliever to take a beating in a game at the start of long road trip in order to preserve the rest of the bullpen. Some fans will be irate at this, thinking the Dodgers should try to win every game at all costs.

—The Cool-A-Coo will not return to Dodger Stadium and will continue to be missed.

—The Dodgers will continue to call the hot dog they sell a Dodger Dog, even though it tastes nothing like a Farmer John Dodger Dog.

—Only three pitchers will pitch more than 100 innings, but the quality of the staff from top to bottom will be more consistent throughout the season, allowing them to use fewer than 40 pitchers this season.

—Either Blake Treinen or Tanner Scott will continue to pitch poorly, but the Dodgers, again with their eye on the postseason and on how much money they are paying these guys, will continue to trot them out there in hopes they will rebound.

—Some fans will complain about the abhorrent price of going to a Dodger game. They will still go though, and the Dodgers will draw four million, giving them no reason to lower prices.

—Justin Turner will sign a one-day contract with the team and then retire.

—Edwin Díaz will save 30 games and give the bullpen some much-needed stability.

—Kyle Tucker won’t hit as well as hoped, but will be a significant upgrade over Michael Conforto.

—Hyeseong Kim will come up at some point, wow fans with his blazing speed, hit close to .300, and then be sent back down.

—Dave Roberts will have a bad game or two where he makes a decision that seems nonsensical. Some will demand he be fired because “Anyone could manage this team.” Those people will be wrong.

—You will continue to need to subscribe to about a dozen streaming channels to watch all the Dodger games on TV. No one will.

—Yoshinobu Yamamoto will lead the team in victories.

—Organist Dieter Ruehle will continue to find the perfect song for any situation.

—Tyler Glasnow will look unbeatable one start, then get thrown off his next start by a hangnail and pitch like Dave Goltz.

—There will be thrilling victories, agonizing defeats and some boring games. But it will all be worth it as we look around and see all the different types of Dodger fans out there, reminding us that baseball unites us.

—The Dodgers will finish the season 98-64 and cruise to the NL West title. They will not have to play in the wild-card game.

—And that means they will be in the postseason where … anything can happen.

—So, don’t get so worried about the destination that you forget to enjoy the ride.

How many games will the Dodgers win?

We asked, How many games will the Dodgers win this season? After 10,566 responses:

They will win 96-100 games, 46.3%
They will win 101-110 games, 35.5%
They will win 91-95 games, 13.2%
They will set the record by winning more than 116 games, 2.3%
They will win 111-115 games, 1.6%
They will win 86-90 games, 0.9%
They will finish under .500, 0.2%
They will win 81-85 games, one vote

We asked, Will the Dodgers win the World Series this season? After 10,538 responses:

Yes, 79.1%
No, 20.9%

A walking path to Dodger Stadium?

Did you know there is a walking path to Dodger Stadium? There is a one-mile walking path from the Chinatown Metro station to Dodger Stadium. There’s one problem though, to quote Bill Shaikin‘s column on the path: “To go a very short distance safely with a feeling that you’re not going to die is very difficult.”

Read more about this here.

Up next

Thursday: Arizona (Zac Gallen) at Dodgers (Yoshinobu Yamamoto), 5:30 p.m., NBC, Peacock, AM 570, KTNQ 1020

Friday: Arizona (Ryne Nelson) at Dodgers (Emmet Sheehan), 7:10 p.m., Sportsnet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020

Saturday: Arizona (*-Eduardo Rodriguez) at Dodgers (Tyler Glasnow), 6:10 p.m., Sportsnet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020

*-left-handed

In case you missed it

Dodgers sign right-hander Jake Cousins to one-year deal on eve of opening day

Shaikin: Dodger Walk: A great city needs a walking path to blue heaven. Do it, Frank McCourt

How Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani can put himself in the 2026 NL Cy Young conversation

And finally

Our opening day tradition: Danny Kaye sings the Dodgers song. Watch and listen here.

Until next time….

Have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future Dodgers newsletter? Email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

First baseman Freddie Freeman, pausing outside of the Dodgers’ home dugout to talk about the upcoming season, nodded his head toward the right-field foul pole, where just beyond it the Dodgers’ championships signs are displayed.

Eight baseball-shaped signs sported their years — 1955, 1959, 1963, 1965, 1981, 1988, 2020, 2024 — while a ninth was still shielded by a blue cover, with plenty of room along the stadium’s club level for more.

“You want to just keep putting those banners up,” Freeman said. “That one’s blocked for a reason. You want to do it again. You want to keep doing it over and over and over again. And that’s what’s fun, and then that’s what makes everything else just take care of itself.”

The 2025 championship sign will be revealed as the Dodgers both celebrate last year’s achievements and set the tone for this year.

They’ll receive their World Series ring on Friday, but they’ll also be in the midst of playing three games against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

“Everyone’s different,” Freeman said. “Some people want to move on and get on to the new season and not worry about last year. I’m one of the guys that can appreciate what we did last year, even in the present year.

“It’s hard to win a World Series. I don’t like to just kick it to the side. … Our fans haven’t celebrated it since the parade. We get to celebrate with our fans and open the weekend. It’s going to be a great time.”

Catcher Will Smith was more in the other camp.

“I get my ring, and I put it in the safe, and I don’t really look at it ever again,” he said when asked about the ring ceremony. “It brings back all the emotions from the prior year, you like showing friends and stuff, it’s cool. But no, for me, the motivation is just winning, being with these guys each and every day, and competing with them and working towards that goal.”

On that point, Dodgers players seem to agree.

They don’t need a tangible reminder of their World Series aspirations this year.

“It’ll be one of the few days where we really think about what we did last year, versus what we’re trying to do right now,” veteran third baseman Max Muncy said.

Plenty of teams say their goal is to win the World Series. But the Dodgers have raised their outside expectations, too. Entering Thursday, PECOTA put the Dodgers’ odds of completing a three-peat at 20.8%, by far the highest World Series chances in the majors. PECOTA, Baseball Prospectus’ projection system, listed the Mariners as next most likely to win the World Series, at 14.2%.

While those numbers establish a clear favorite, they also reflect how unpredictable the postseason can be. Even the Dodgers, with their lofty payroll and strong player development track record, will need health, luck, and the right mindset to pull off a third straight championship.

“You know what the goal is every single year, and that’s to be the last team standing at the end,” Mucy said. “But we more so preach, how do you get there, instead of that being the goal. And for us, it’s always been, you have to take it one day at a time.”

The phrase itself isn’t a novel concept. The trick is making that focus a reality, and a team standard.

“I talk about it every day,” manager Dave Roberts said. “I’ve talked about it since I got here. It’s just, let’s win a baseball game. That’s our mantra, and everyone in this building, that’s the goal.”

The veterans on the team preach it too, hoping to pass down that team-first focus to the generation coming behind them.

“When you put on this uniform, you come in here, you see all these superstars working extremely hard every single day — front office, ownership group doing the same thing — that’s the expectation,” Freeman said. “It’s a different standard, and you just want to be part of that standard that keeps the level high.”

After the commotion of the championship banner reveal and the ring presentation the first two days of the season, “let’s win a baseball game,” will continue to be the mantra.

Maybe it will even work well enough, day after day, for the Dodgers to add another sign to their championship display this time next year.

Transgender women athletes will be excluded from the Olympics beginning with the 2028 Los Angeles Games after the International Olympic Committee implemented a new eligibility policy on Thursday.

Eligibility for women’s competition will be determined by a one-time, mandatory genetics test, according to the IOC. The test requires screening through saliva, a cheek swab or a blood sample.

No woman who transitioned from being born male competed at the 2024 Paris Summer Games, and it is unclear if any transgender women currently compete at an Olympic level. The new policy, however, aligns with President Trump’s executive order banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s or girls’ sporting events in the United States.

The eligibility policy approved by the IOC is not retroactive and does not apply to recreational sports programs.

The IOC said in a statement that it “protects fairness, safety and integrity in the female category.

“Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females.”

Until now, individual sports federations determined whether transgender women were allowed to compete in women’s categories, with the IOC providing only recommendations. Sports that placed restrictions on transgender athletes included track and field, boxing, swimming and rugby.

The IOC Executive Board approved the new policy after 18 months of study. It mirrors the guidelines approved by the World Athletics Council in June, determining eligibility for the female category through screening for the absence or presence of the SRY gene.

The IOC policy leans on scientific research that considers the presence of the SRY gene fixed for life and represents evidence that an athlete has experienced male sex development. Athletes who screen negative for the SRY gene will be eligible to compete in women’s sports.

SRY (which stands for sex-determining region Y gene) is found on the Y chromosome. In the cell, it binds to other DNA, leading to testis formation, according to the National Library of Medicine. Even men who lack Y chromosomes still have a copy of the SRY region on one of their X chromosomes, which accounts for their maleness.

Jane Thornton, the IOC medical and scientific director, last year presented to the executive board findings that transgender athletes born with male sexual markers retained physical advantages, even those that had received treatment to reduce testosterone.

Kirsty Coventry, a former gold-medal Olympics swimmer from Zimbabwe, was elected a year ago as the first woman president of the IOC. She campaigned on the importance of protecting the women’s category.

“At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat,” Coventry said Thursday in a statement. “So, it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category.”

Following the controversial final in Rabat – in which Morocco and Real Madrid forward Brahim Diaz missed a Panenka penalty to win the match in the 114th minute – the Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF) immediately lodged a complaint with Caf and Fifa, claiming that Senegal leaving the field of play “greatly affected the normal course of the match and the players’ morale”.

Caf’s disciplinary committee initially rejected that appeal, instead issuing sanctions against both sides, including a five-match ban for Senegal head coach Pape Thiaw, on 29 January.

The FRMF said those original penalties did not “reflect the seriousness of the incidents”, and Caf’s appeal board agreed, releasing a statement on 17 March which said Senegal had contravened articles 82 and 84 of competition regulations.

Article 82 states that if a team “leaves the ground before the regular end of the match without the authorisation of the referee”, they are eliminated.

Senegal’s government responded by calling for an investigation into “suspected corruption” at Caf, a claim rebuffed by the governing body’s president, Patrice Motsepe, who has been at pains to point out the appeal board’s independence.

“It is important that the decisions of our Caf disciplinary board and the Caf appeals board are viewed with respect and integrity,” he said.

The final decision on who claims the 2025 Afcon title now rests with Cas, sport’s highest judicial authority.

“To wage this moral and legal crusade, we have appointed a team of seasoned professionals with undeniable expertise,” Fall announced in Paris, flanked by members of the FSF legal team.

One of them, lawyer Seydou Diagne, called the decision to strip Senegal of their title “so blatant, so absurd, so irrational”.

“The decision of the appeals jury cannot even be considered a true decision of sporting justice,” he added.

“It is an unacceptable and intolerable attack on the fundamental rights of our national Football Federation.”

Fellow lawyer Juan Perez said: “A match that was over, whose result had been decided by the referee, now being re-refereed, administratively – that’s unprecedented. You haven’t seen anything like it. It could change the world of football.”

Caf recently updated the Afcon 2025 review on its website to list Morocco as winners, although that page now appears to have been taken down.

With Senegal refusing to relinquish the trophy, and with Saturday’s planned parade a sign of their contempt, the battle to be crowned African champions is far from over.

It was Dodger Stadium on Wednesday, when the grass outside the baseline and the bright red sign high above center field read “UNIQLO FIELD.” It will be Dodger Stadium on Thursday, when the defending World Series champions open their new season, and forevermore.

The official name of our summer home is now Uniqlo Field at Dodger Stadium. The team announcers will say that, and so will some of the signs. The fans won’t, and the founder of the company that just spent nine figures on the name you won’t use said he completely understands.

“That’s a very natural reaction,” Uniqlo founder Tadashi Yanai told me through an interpreter. “We respect that.”

Yanai said his company’s deal with the Dodgers covers five years. He would say only that the total value was “more” than $125 million. That provides the Dodgers with an annual naming rights payment in line with the ones at Crypto.com Arena, Intuit Dome and Sofi Stadium, without the Dodgers having to sell naming rights to the actual venue.

Are the Dodgers baseball’s version of a gold mine? Yes. Do they spend big and win big? Also yes. Do you mind if Uniqlo essentially covers Freddie Freeman’s salary this season?

“We need a lot of revenue to put out the product that we do,” Dodgers president Stan Kasten said. “That’s not a secret. And we’re proud of everyone who helps us do it: all of our fans, all of our media partners, and all of our sponsor partners. They are all important. It is how this all comes together.”

While Uniqlo would be delighted if you used its name, whatever local fans choose to call the stadium is not critical to the success of the partnership.

For a Japanese company in pursuit of brand awareness and expansion in the United States and elsewhere, there might be nothing better than getting your name in front of millions of fans around the world watching Shohei Ohtani play on television.

Ohtani made an estimated $125 million in endorsements and sponsorships last year, Sportico reported, a larger annual haul “than any other athlete in the history of sports.”

“The Dodgers are such a popular team,” Yanai said. “I usually ask my wife, after I come back from the office, whether Shohei hit a home run. I think all the Japanese people do that.”

Uniqlo Field signs were unveiled Wednesday at Dodger Stadium in the wake of the team’s naming rights deal.

(Beth Harris / Associated Press)

According to Forbes, Yanai is the richest man in Japan, where baseball teams carry corporate names. Why not buy a team and call it, say, the Uniqlo Bears?

“I always keep saying that could be very interesting,” he said, “but my wife turned it down. She keeps telling me, ‘Tadashi, you are not cut out to manage sports teams.’”

Instead, he is managing Uniqlo, an apparel company that pitches itself as blending comfort with quality. “We do not make disposable clothing,” Yanai said in the company’s last annual report.

Uniqlo has 794 stores in Japan but only 77 in the United States, including 14 in the Southland. Koji Yanai, a senior executive officer and Tadashi’s son, said the company aspires to grow annual U.S. revenues from $6 billion to $30 billion.

He shared what might be a more challenging aspiration.

“The Uniqlo Field at Dodger Stadium name may be very new for everyone,” he said, “but I hope in the near future the fans will like it and will love it.”

United Airlines Field at the Coliseum? Yeah, no.

Jeff Marks, the chief executive of Los Angeles-based Innovative Partnerships Group, once brokered a naming rights deal in which the Cal football team would play on Kabam Field at California Memorial Stadium. He tried to find a receptive audience for the name.

“We educated a lot of freshmen, sophomores, and newcomers,” Marks said. “Are you going to go after alumni who have been calling it Memorial Stadium? No. So you didn’t focus on that. You focused on people that could be more impressionable, and it worked.”

With Dodger Stadium, we’ll see. For the 2026 season, it is now time for Dodgers baseball, but not before one reporter at a press conference Wednesday asked company officials whether Uniqlo would provide the Dodgers players with free clothing.

Kasten could not pass up the chance to interject.

“We pay them enough,” he said with a grin, “to shop at Uniqlo stores.”

The women’s category of Olympic sports will be limited to biological females from 2028, says the International Olympic Committee.

Eligibility will be determined by a “once in a lifetime” sex test, which would prevent transgender women and those with differences in sexual development (DSD) from competing.

It will take effect from the Los Angeles Olympics.

IOC president Kirsty Coventry said the policy was “led by medical experts”.

“At the Olympic Games even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat,” she said.

“So it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category. In addition, in some sports it would simply not be safe.”

This is the golden age of baseball in Southern California. The Angels heralded its dawn.

In 2002, the Angels won the World Series, the first of six postseason appearances within eight years. The Dodgers had played pretty good ball for more than a century, but they never had done that.

Angel Stadium was the place to be. The rally monkey was all the rage. The team nurtured a wave of young talent to surround Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero. In 2009, the final year of that run, the Angels drafted future Hall of Famer Mike Trout. In 2011, for the first and only time, the Angels sold more tickets than the Dodgers.

Neither the Angels nor the Dodgers made the playoffs in 2010, 2011, or 2012. Since then, the Dodgers have made 13 consecutive postseason appearances, with three World Series championships to show for it. The Angels have made one, and they did not win a game.

Never — and this includes the Dodgers’ time in bankruptcy court — have the fates of the two Los Angeles franchises been so disparate. In 2026, the Dodgers could win their third consecutive World Series championship, and the Angels could finish in last place for the third consecutive year.

In a story on the Major League Baseball website, two writers ranked the 30 teams on the basis of how likely each team would be to win this year’s World Series. The Dodgers ranked as most likely. The Angels ranked as least likely.

At a time major league owners would like you to believe market size equals destiny, the team with baseball’s longest postseason drought plays in the second-largest market in North America.

Today, however, we come not to bemoan the bad times but celebrate the good times, for the Angels and Dodgers.

The century is a quarter old. So here are our quarter-century teams for both the Angels and Dodgers, based solely on performances for those teams. In a few places, we included a deserving player at a secondary position, if his primary position was fully stocked. Let us know where we got it right, and where we didn’t.

And, while you’re there, you’ll see the story of our golden age in a nutshell. Of the 22 players on the Dodgers’ first and second teams, 11 were on at least one of the World Series championship teams this decade. Of the 22 players on the Angels’ first and second teams, only four played for the Angels this decade.

One was Shohei Ohtani, the first-team designated hitter for both teams.

*We considered how long someone played for the Dodgers or Angels during this century, as well as how well someone played, but we’re making an exception here for two reasons: one, left field has not been a position of strength and depth for the Dodgers; and, two: Manny Ramirez’s two-month “Mannywood” run after the Dodgers traded for him in 2008 was simply astonishing: He played 53 games and drove in 53 runs, batting .396 with 17 home runs and a 1.232 OPS. In the playoffs, he batted .520 in eight games, hitting four home runs and driving in 10 runs, with a 1.747 OPS. The two-month “Mannywood” run was good for 3.5 WAR — the same WAR Freddie Freeman delivered over the entire 2025 season. (And, yes, in May of the following year, Ramirez was suspended for violating baseball’s drug policy.)

The Dodgers are working ahead on adding bullpen depth for later in the season.

Right-hander Jake Cousins, who is rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, was signed to a one-year deal, as revealed on the team’s transactions page on Tuesday.

The one-year contract is worth $950,000, with incentives that could bring the total to $1 million if he makes at least five appearances and finishes the season on the active roster, a source familiar with the deal but not authorized to speak publicly confirmed. The Athletic first reported the terms of the deal on Wednesday.

Cousins, 31, underwent Tommy John surgery last June. At that point, he’d already spent the whole season on the 60-day IL. In 2024, however, Cousins posted a 2.37 ERA in 37 relief appearances for the Yankees. He pitched in all three rounds of the postseason that year, including three appearances in the World Series against the Dodgers. Cousins was the pitcher of record in Game 1, which culminated with Freddie Freeman’s dramatic walk-off grand slam off Nestor Cortes.

Though Cousins has a substantial injury history, he’s performed when healthy. He spent the first three seasons of his major-league career with the Brewers, amassing a 3.08 ERA in 51 games.

Cousins is expected to return sometime during the season.

The Dodgers also made a flurry of injured list moves, all retroactive to Sunday.

They put right-hander Bobby Miller (shoulder soreness) on the 60-day IL; left-hander Blake Snell (left shoulder fatigue) and right-handers Brusdar Graterol (right shoulder surgery recovery), Brock Stewart (right shoulder surgery recovery), Gavin Stone (right shoulder inflammation) and Landon Knack (right intercostal strain) on the 15-day IL; and utility player Tommy Edman (right ankle surgery recovery) on the 10-day IL.

Iran will play two friendly matches in Turkiye as they prepare for the FIFA World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico.

Iran’s men’s football team have been training in southern Turkiye as they ⁠prepare for two ⁠upcoming friendly matches before the FIFA World Cup, where the squad are likely to attract heightened attention against the backdrop of the United States-Israel ⁠war on Iran.

Team Melli held a training session in Belek, a resort area near the Mediterranean city of Antalya, with tightly restricted media access as officials ⁠said they wanted to avoid distractions before the matches described as critical to their World Cup preparations.

Iran’s football federation is in discussions with world governing body FIFA about moving its World Cup matches to Mexico from the US due ‌to concerns over player safety, federation President Mehdi Taj said last week.

Iran’s camp has largely sought to keep a low public profile as the team builds towards the World Cup, where they are expected to face intense political and media scrutiny.

In Belek, no interviews with players or coaches were made available, and a team media representative said the squad were focused entirely ⁠on their immediate competitive programme.

Iran will play two matches ⁠in Antalya, against Nigeria on Friday and Costa Rica on Tuesday.

The friendlies were originally scheduled to take place in Jordan, but were moved to Turkiye following the outbreak of the war on Iran.

The ⁠players appeared relaxed during the session in sunny conditions, with staff and players at times chatting and joking.

Among those ⁠present was forward Mehdi Taremi, who has been ⁠in the spotlight in recent days after swapping shirts with an Israeli opponent while playing for his club Olympiacos in Greece.

Striker Sardar Azmoun was omitted from the squad after posting a picture on ‌his Instagram feed of a meeting with Dubai’s ruler Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

Iranian media reported that Azmoun, who has scored 57 goals in 91 internationals, ‌had ‌been expelled from the national team for a perceived act of disloyalty to the government.

French and Brazilian stars in focus as former world champions meet in a glamour friendly in Boston, US, before the World Cup.

Brazil and France will be among the leading contenders for FIFA World Cup glory later this year, and the two heavyweight teams continue their preparations for the tournament by facing off in a glamour friendly in the United States on Thursday.

With fewer than three months until kickoff, the countries ranked fifth and third respectively in the world rankings are in the US, familiarising themselves with what lies in store for them this June-July.

When and where is the Brazil vs France friendly match?

The former world champions go head-to-head on Thursday at 20:00 GMT at the Gillette Stadium near Boston, Massachusetts.

The home of the National Football League (NFL) side New England Patriots is the venue for the first meeting of these teams in exactly 11 years, since Brazil came from behind to win 3-1 in a friendly at the Stadium of France in March 2015 with goals from Oscar, Neymar and Luiz Gustavo.

How is Brazil’s form ahead of the match?

Brazil laboured their way through South American World Cup qualifying with six defeats in 18 games as they finished fifth. Now they are hoping the appointment of Carlo Ancelotti as coach will give them a genuine chance of winning a record-extending sixth World Cup, and first since 2002.

After this match, they will head to Orlando, Florida, for the next friendly on March 31 against Croatia, the team that ousted them from the 2022 World Cup in the quarterfinals.

Will Brazil miss Neymar?

Neymar is now 34 and has not played for his country since October 2023, but his absence from the squad has still been one of the main talking points coming into these matches.

“It is a physical issue, not technical. With the ball, he is great, but he needs to improve physically,” Ancelotti said after being asked about the absence of the former Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain superstar, now at Santos.

“Because in my eyes and those of my staff, he is not at 100 percent. So he needs to keep working to get back to 100 percent.”

Who will be the key players for Brazil?

In the meantime, Brazil’s main man is Real Madrid forward Vinicius Junior, while others likely to have key roles at the World Cup, such as goalkeeper Alisson Becker, centre-back Gabriel Magalhaes and midfielder Bruno Guimaraes, are missing here.

Despite a glittering club career that includes two Champions League triumphs and three La Liga titles, Vinicius has scored eight goals in 45 appearances for the five-time world champions and is determined to turn promise into international silverware with his second World Cup on the horizon.

“I feel more at ease, I’m happier; ⁠and when I’m happier, everyone around me is ⁠happier and more confident too,” Vinicius told reporters.

“I hope that everything I do for Real, I can go on to do ⁠here with the Brazilian national team. That’s my biggest goal. It’s where I’ve always dreamed of being, ⁠and I want to bring great pride ⁠to our country and a lot of joy to our entire nation.”

Among other players to feature is Rayan, the uncapped 19-year-old who earned his place after impressing in the Premier League for Bournemouth since arriving from Vasco da Gama in January.

Will Mbappe start for France?

The main focus for France, as ever, is Kylian Mbappe, and the national team captain was eager to feature on this trip after overcoming a knee injury to return for Real Madrid just last week.

There had been mounting fears in France that the 27-year-old’s fitness could become a real issue, but he said missing the World Cup or the end of the club season was never a concern.

“It is behind me. I was following a protocol, and I wanted to start playing again gradually. I hope to be able to play during this international break and to start being decisive again,” he said on Monday.

What happened in the last Brazil-France match?

The last competitive meeting of the teams came at the 2006 World Cup, when France beat Brazil 1-0 in the quarterfinals, thanks to a Thierry Henry goal and a masterful performance by Zidane.

Will Brazil and France meet in the World Cup?

If both win their groups at the upcoming World Cup as expected, they would not meet each other until the final.

Getting that far is the aim for these sides, and Thursday’s game will be a good gauge of where both stand as the competition approaches.

So much has happened over the past seven days, including the Carabao Cup final, World Indoor Athletics Championships and possibly the most clinical performance of all time in football’s Championship.

That last one’s still up for debate, but what isn’t is 4% of quizzers getting full marks in last week’s edition. Will you make the grade this week?

After more quizzes? Go to our dedicated Football Quizzes and Sports Quizzes pages and sign up for notifications to get the latest quizzes sent straight to your device.

Three weeks into spring practice, USC football coaches are making one thing clear: 95% of their best will not be accepted or tolerated. Wednesday’s practice started with some of the players doing up-downs after forgetting equipment.

“It was a good message from some of our staff and leaders in terms of the approach that we need to have every day that we come out here,” Trojans coach Lincoln Riley said.

A sentiment that was shared by junior defensive tackle Jide Abasiri: “We just have to be better prepared.”

After the hiccup, Riley said the team responded well and it was back to business.

USC defensive tackle Jide Abasiri (97) is pushing himself to be a more vocal leader as a the Trojans help young players get acclimated to the program.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

After a spirited day on the field on Tuesday following a one-week spring break, Wednesday’s practice was scripted with the intent to cause stress and create discomfort — stacking multiple two-minute drills after a 6 a.m. team meeting. The goal is to build a no-excuses program.

“It’s invaluable time, invaluable reps,” Riley said. “Coming out and working plays and the techniques, great. When you start putting those guys in real-life situations and you make it really difficult on them, you really start to see who rises up and they’re great teaching moments for these guys and for the team in terms of what we want to be and what we want them to be.”

Regardless of the mental challenges Riley applied, the Trojans’ morale remains positive as players compete for spots in the lineup. The energy of the team comes from within, Riley said.

“It allows us as a staff to really hone in on pushing these guys, and coaching and critiquing and correcting,” Riley said. “And they’re taking it well.”

Attention to detail has always been important at USC, but Abasiri said this year there is an extra emphasis being placed on play-specific details. The staff has implemented drills that focus on a player’s specific movement or job during various plays.

Entering his third season with the Trojans, Abasiri said he felt like he needed to be a team leader. USC landed the No. 1 class in the nation for the first time since 2006. With so many new young players joining spring practice and a limited number of Trojans with three years of experience, Abasiri felt it was his job to lead.

“Just being an older guy, I feel like it’s important for me to … help them just come along,” Abasiri said.

So far, his advice has been to “just have fun with it.”

“I mean, obviously, stay on top of everything and all your stuff, but I feel like people get so stressed and so caught up in what they’re doing that they forget that this is supposed to be enjoyable,” Abasiri said.

The coaching staff, meanwhile, is balancing teaching schemes and the playbook.

“You have to be able to do both at this level,” Riley said. “The new guys that came in did have a pretty good foundation. A lot of them came from really good programs. A lot of them had a pretty good working football knowledge to where when we got started with them, it wasn’t like you felt like you were starting from literal square one.”

Return game is still unsettled

USC is still working to identify its top kickoff and punt return options.

“We haven’t done a lot of live returns yet,” Riley said. “We’re just trying to figure out who really fields the ball well, who understands it, who makes decisions and honestly, the returners, they’re showing us a lot of what they can do just in the offensive and defensive periods.”

The coaching staff has a pretty good idea who some of the best players in that position are, but at the moment, they just want to develop the skills, from a return standpoint.