Real Madrid have agreed a deal to sign Levante striker Carlos Espi.

Madrid and Levante announced on Thursday that an agreement had been reached for Espi to move to the Bernabeu on a five-year contract through to 2031.

The 21-year-old striker had a €25million release clause in his Levante contract.

The Athletic reported on June 24 that new Madrid head coach Jose Mourinho wanted to sign a striker this summer, but the club required a first-team departure before making the addition to the squad.  On Thursday, The Athletic reported that Fulham were set to sign 22-year-old Madrid forward Gonzalo Garcia. 

Madrid have signed Ibrahima Konate, Denzel Dumfries, Bernardo Silva and Marc Cucurella during this transfer window. The Spanish club are also working on deals to secure RB Leipzig’s Yan Diomande and Manchester City’s Rodri.

Espi, who has represented Spain at under-19 and under-20 levels, came through Levante’s youth academy after joining the club in 2022. He made his first-team debut in February 2024 and his La Liga debut in August 2025.

Espi scored seven goals in 38 games in La Liga 2, Spain’s second division, before scoring 11 La Liga goals in 25 games last campaign. He scored 20 goals in 66 games for Levante. 

Does Madrid’s Espi move make sense?

This is yet another swift move by Madrid in this transfer window that is being very different from previous years.

While Garcia’s transfer was being finalised, work was underway in parallel to find his replacement. Some Madrid fans have not been happy with what they interpret as essentially a swap of players, but these deals go beyond simply exchanging one player for another.

Garcia’s wanted to play more than Mourinho could guarantee him; Alvaro Arbeloa and Fulham saw it that way and convinced him. Furthermore, the club will earn around €40 million, whilst retaining preferential rights as well as 30 per cent of any future sale. Everyone happy.

Espi is also Spanish and young, but his footballing profile isn’t exactly the same as Garcia’s. The difference in height is the most obvious sign of this, and none of Mourinho’s attackers offered that advantage in aerial balls.

Espi’s €25m release clause made it possible to reach an agreement without excessive financial risk, particularly as the club had already agreed around €40m for Gonzalo.

In short, Espi is an affordable young player who perfectly fits a very specific role that is never a spare part in any squad, and one whom Mourinho had already requested; the club is once again showing that it is listening closely to its manager.

ST. LOUIS — Chicago Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer is invested in this group in a way that does not always come across when he talks about model projections, playoff probabilities and payroll flexibility. Systems and processes help keep him tethered, reducing some of the mood swings and randomness, but his personal stake in this venture is enormous.

The Cubs announced the hiring of Hoyer as Theo Epstein’s general manager in November 2011, back when Pete Crow-Armstrong was 9 years old, the St. Louis Cardinals had just won the World Series and Tarik Skubal was a teenager who would struggle to get noticed by Division I programs.

This means Hoyer served as the club’s No. 1 baseball executive or its second-in-command when each one of the 53 players the Cubs have used this season joined the organization, from first-round picks Ian Happ and Nico Hoerner to the 13 different relievers who have notched a save amid the constant roster churn.

With Monday’s trade deadline rapidly approaching, the next moves represent another defining moment. With Hoyer running the show, the Cubs have been built back up to the point where the idea of acquiring Skubal cannot be ruled out, even though the Detroit Tigers ace will become a free agent after this season.

This team is that good.

“Our group has some pretty special things about it,” Hoerner said. “We’re not perfect. We’re in a place now where we can definitely make some improvements to a team that’s already really strong.”

Hoyer’s “no reason to go halfway” sell-off in 2021, which shipped out iconic players from the team that ended a 108-year championship drought, yielded Crow-Armstrong, who has since developed into a superstar, delivering a unique MVP-level performance that cannot be taken for granted.

Valuing defense and stability, Hoyer courted free agents Dansby Swanson and Alex Bregman as he assembled a solid nucleus of everyday players. Hoyer made it a priority to reestablish the franchise’s presence in Japan, arranging deals for Seiya Suzuki and Shota Imanaga in an important international market.

The cold-blooded decision to sign Craig Counsell to a five-year, $40 million contract and then fire manager David Ross has worked out in Hoyer’s favor.

Pete Crow-Armstrong has developed into a superstar for the Cubs. (Scott Kane / Associated Press)

Although the Cubs should not be viewed as the prohibitive favorite for Skubal — the Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays have more robust farm systems — the interest in a two-time Cy Young Award winner as a rental pitcher signals an ambitious, open-minded pursuit.

The hunger to win a championship as the top-ranking baseball executive is “always there,” Hoyer said during the July reunion weekend for the 2016 World Series team at Wrigley Field.

“The times I’ve been fortunate enough to win, you take those moments and sort of put them up on a shelf in your mind and you move on,” he said. “I don’t wear my rings. The job is the next one.”

As someone who rode down Lake Shore Drive and Michigan Avenue in the championship parade, and celebrated two World Series titles during his tenure with the Boston Red Sox, Hoyer knows what a real contender looks like. That eye test will influence how aggressive the Cubs will be at the deadline. At minimum, the club will need an established starting pitcher and a proven high-leverage reliever.

“I try to not get overly emotional about it,” Hoyer said. “I try to stick to the numbers, and try to make sure that we’re doing things that make sense on paper. But, yeah, listen, I think our position-playing group is really, really good. We had a lull there for a while, but the offense and defense part of it is impressive. That’s a group that can win a lot of games in October.

“Obviously, the challenge for us has simply been pitching and pitching injuries. The whole team matters.”

Hoyer’s rational approach sometimes obscures how he’s been involved in some of the wildest rivalries, most consequential deals and biggest moments in baseball history.

Spending Thanksgiving at Curt Schilling’s Arizona home with Epstein — and then failing to execute a blockbuster trade for Alex Rodriguez — propelled the Red Sox toward finally beating the New York Yankees and winning the 2004 World Series that ended an 86-year drought.

The 2016 Cubs felt the century-and-counting weight when Epstein acquired rental closer Aroldis Chapman from the Yankees for uber-prospect Gleyber Torres and memorably asked, “If not now, when?”

“You use the experience,” Counsell said. “It gives you more perspective, and a more well-rounded perspective of how these things go down. It’s situationally, buyers and sellers, what rentals get, how people are motivated, relationships with decision-makers, and understanding them. Mistakes, successes, I think that sharpens your instincts. That’s the value of experience.”

“Our group has some pretty special things about it,” Nico Hoerner said. “We’re not perfect. We’re in a place now where we can definitely make some improvements to a team that’s already really strong.” (Nam Y. Huh / Associated Press)

When the defending champs needed a midseason boost in 2017, conventional wisdom held that Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf would not let his front office deal with a crosstown rival, but the Cubs acquired Jose Quintana in a trade that shocked the city’s baseball fans and sports media.

Even within the restricted environment of the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, the Cubs traded for multiple major-league players to deepen a team that would win a division title.

As Hoyer felt the mounting pressure as a lame-duck executive going into 2025, he went against the projection models and traded for Kyle Tucker, getting an All-Star in his walk year while giving up 14 potential seasons of club control over Cam Smith, Isaac Paredes and Hayden Wesneski, knowing the Houston Astros would ultimately win that deal on paper over time.

Days before last year’s trade deadline, the Cubs announced Hoyer had signed a contract extension without specifying the length of the deal. Hoyer’s front office then made a series of safe, sensible deals that incrementally improved the roster without substantially raising the club’s ceiling.

Once again, Hoyer is on the clock, but this time the players feel a different sense of momentum. As rap music blasted inside the visitors’ clubhouse at Busch Stadium after Thursday afternoon’s 4-2 win over the Cardinals in 10 innings, Bregman observed, “This series was probably the most consistent baseball we’ve played in all facets of the game.”

The Cubs won three of four games on the road against their historic rival, the only loss being Wednesday night’s 3-2 walk-off defeat in the 10th inning. Milwaukee’s lead in the National League Central is down to 5 ½ games, and Wrigley Field will be rocking for this weekend’s marquee series against the Yankees.

By the time Imanaga throws Friday’s first pitch, scheduled for 1:20 p.m. CT, there will be less than 76 hours until the trade deadline. Hoyer might not be the most desperate buyer or an impulsive dealmaker, but he has significant trade chips on the major-league roster and in the upper levels of Chicago’s farm system, a team worthy of reinvestment and enough experience to know that these opportunities don’t come around that often.

“It’s all risk,” Counsell said. “Players don’t like talk about the future. Fans don’t like talk about the future. But he has a responsibility for the future. It’s one of the hardest parts about that job.”

PITTSFORD, N.Y. — When Buffalo Bills defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard sat down at the table for his pre-practice interview session Thursday, it wasn’t just any first camp interview for a new Bills coach.

As the team celebrates its 25th straight year at St. John Fisher University for camp, Leonhard has lived the Pittsford life before. The first was as an undrafted free agent in 2005, trying to make an NFL roster for the first time. A relative longshot to make the team, Leonhard defied those odds to crack the 53-man roster in his first season and remained with the Bills through the 2007 season. After a few stops, Leonhard returned to the Bills in 2013 but didn’t see Pittsford that time around, as he signed in September.

Fast forward 21 years, and here Leonhard is tabbed as the man to help solve the Bills’ problems on the defensive side of the ball. From undrafted to defensive coordinator with the same team.

“In some ways it feels a little full circle. I remember being in these dorms when they weren’t quite as nice,” Leonhard joked, noting all the upgrades over the last two decades.

The defensive coordinator firmly believes in the bonding aspect that going away to camp can provide for a team, and it certainly helped him in his NFL journey as a player.

“Training camps were always a little bit special,” Leonhard said. “Nerve-wracking, right, because you’re high stress and you’re trying to make a team, especially being undrafted. But it is a little of a strange feeling walking around here, kind of feeling like you know it, but at the same time, it’s a totally different feel just with the role I’m in.”

Now, as the man in charge of the defense, Leonhard attempts to figure things out on the fly at St. John Fisher, as the team balances learning a new defense and determining the depth at each position within that scheme, all while the staff learns where to best utilize those players.

As they begin formulating those solutions, a couple of position groups need answers. Here’s what stood out on Day 2 of Bills camp.

The cornerback depth conundrum

Ahead of camp opening up Wednesday, going through a 53-man roster projection revealed one very distinct feature. The Bills are light at boundary cornerback — very light. The group consists of the locked-in top cornerback Christian Benford, second-year and 2025 first-round pick Maxwell Hairston, along with rookie second-round pick Davison Igbinosun. Past that trio, the Bills have a rookie seventh-round pick in Toriano Pride Jr. and a pair of undrafted rookies who are longshots to make the team. The Bills usually like to keep four cornerbacks, but there isn’t a clear fourth on the roster as it stands today.

While Hairston and Igbinosun are locks to make the team, neither is a sure thing to be a trusted starter opposite Benford. At this point, Hairston has the clear inside track to the job with more time on task and the investment that went into him. They’ve also seen him play in regular-season games. However, Hairston is still an unknown as a starter. In his appearances last season, he made some really flashy plays, which were great, though the down-in, down-out consistency was lacking. Even if he hadn’t suffered an injury late in the season, it was really clear that Tre’Davious White was performing at a higher level than Hairston in his rookie year.

In fairness to Hairston, a training camp injury marred his whole rookie year, so he was playing catch-up from August until his mid-season return, which is a difficult thing to do for any first-year player. Now, Hairston gets thrust into a brand new defense in his second season, increasing the degree of difficulty a bit more. However, if there’s one thing that suits Hairston best in this new scheme, it’s that the Bills are likely to play much more man coverage with Leonhard than they had in 2025. That’s exactly how Leonhard sees him, too.

“Max is a man corner. He can run, he can challenge,” Leonhard said. “Anytime you have that speed and quickness at an elite level, it allows you to play a lot of man coverage.”

Whether Hairston will be an effective starter in the new scheme remains to be seen. With Igbinosun, he’s a rookie at a difficult-to-play position in the NFL. In the interim, he’ll need to prove at the very least that the Bills can trust him to be their first corner in the event of injury. However, that’s a tough thing to glean from only practice reps, which adds to why the entire group past Benford seems to be completely in flux. And why you shouldn’t count out a veteran addition before long if the Bills are feeling like they need some insurance for their young cornerbacks.

With the Bills in mind specifically, it all comes back to White. He was an excellent starter down the stretch of last season, and while the scheme is different this time around, having him as a capable insurance policy for Hairston and Igbinosun would be a massive step for the 2026 roster. Both young cornerbacks have had some trouble over the first two days, but it’s early and the pads aren’t on yet. How they perform over the next two to three weeks, especially when they can be a bit more physical, will be one of the more important things to track in this year’s training camp.

Mixing and matching along the DL

The Bills are hard at work figuring out what their defensive line will ultimately look like in their new 3-4 scheme under Leonhard, which involves moving most of their pieces among several positions to determine who and what works best. We’ve seen a steady stream of Ed Oliver, Deone Walker, T.J. Sanders, DeWayne Carter and even rookie Zane Durant mix in as they rotate. Landon Jackson and Phidarian Mathis have mixed in, too. But the most common four have been Oliver, Walker, Sanders and, somewhat surprisingly, Carter.

Walker, in unison with Carter, are the two most interesting pieces of that early top four. Because Oliver and Sanders are far better suited to the 4i position in their new defense, Walker’s ultimate role is up in the air. They know he can play nose tackle in their scheme, but the question is how much they want him to play there versus if he looks more comfortable at 4i. That’s where Carter comes in. If Carter can show well enough at nose tackle, it gives the Bills some optionality for Walker. It means they wouldn’t have to be forced to keep him at nose at all times on three defensive line looks and could mix Walker into the 4i spot. That’s especially important because Sanders is an unknown himself, in only his second season and with uneven results as a rookie in a different defensive scheme.

Much like at cornerback, the group of defensive linemen up front bears watching throughout training camp because of the inexperienced depth behind their starters. Durant played well Thursday, but they’ll need to see more from him, Sanders, Carter and Jackson to determine whether they’ll need some external veteran help in that group before the regular season begins. Leonhard said it pretty clearly: They won’t know much about that group until the pads go on and the physicality of the game becomes the focal point.

Kyle Allen struggles in the rain

Over the last couple of seasons, the Bills have enjoyed one of the better backup quarterback situations across the league. Mitchell Trubisky had enough talent and starting experience in the league to at least steady the ship in the event Josh Allen had to miss time with injury. The Bills just never had to encounter that scenario for more than a handful of plays.

And because of their rising cap costs at other positions, the Bills needed to find some breathing room somewhere and landed on the backup quarterback spot. That helped lead to the return of Kyle Allen, the team’s backup in 2023, for another year in Buffalo doing the same thing at only a $1.9 million cap hit.

Quarterback Kyle Allen struggled during Day 2 of Buffalo’s training camp Thursday. (Mark Konezny / Imagn Images)

During Kyle Allen’s first stint with the Bills, there were certainly inconsistent moments for him throughout training camp practices, signaling some concern if Josh Allen had to miss any time during the regular season. On Thursday, in a rainy practice, those accuracy concerns returned, with Kyle Allen getting multiple passes batted away, some misfires and one interception. The obvious hope for the Bills is that their backup never has to play, but if it does happen in 2026, the drop-off to the second quarterback could be more extreme than it has been for most of Josh Allen’s career in Buffalo.

In the meantime, the Bills will hope for a better day from Kyle Allen when the team returns to work Saturday.

McGovern looked at near the end of practice

Just as team drills were concluding Thursday, starting center Connor McGovern went over to meet with a member of the athletic training staff and was then joined by one of the team doctors. They were looking at his hand for a few minutes. McGovern, known for his toughness and for playing through several injuries, was eager to end the conversation and get over to a walkthrough portion to end the day with his teammates on offense. They put his brace back on and jogged over to join the offensive line group. Because there were no team drill reps after the brief meeting, we weren’t able to tell if McGovern would need to miss any actual reps, which makes it something to monitor when the team returns to practice Saturday.

For what it’s worth, McGovern was signing autographs for fans after the practice, so they didn’t take him in immediately for any further evaluation. It could very well be nothing, but anytime a starting player gets looked at by the athletic training staff and a team doctor, it’s worth noting.