ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — Slaven Bilić is back as coach of Croatia after the team's most successful coach Zlatko Dalić left following the World Cup.
Bilić returns to a job he left 14 years ago, after six years in charge, with experience of coaching in the Premier League with West Ham and West Bromwich, as well as in Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
“I am genuinely happy to start this challenge and I feel fully prepared for it — as a more mature and experienced coach than in 2006, yet with the same motivation and desire to see Croatia stay powerful, bold, and successful,” Bilić said in a statement.
He takes over a Croatia team which exited the World Cup amid a blizzard of recriminations. Its last-gasp equalizer was ruled offside over the lightest of touches detected by a sensor in the ball, ensuring a 2-1 loss to Portugal in the round of 32.
That ended nine years in charge for Dalić, who led Croatia to its only World Cup final in 2018, a loss to France, and then third place in 2022. The national soccer federation hailed him as the “greatest Croatian coach of all time” on a social media graphic when he stepped down last week.
Bilić was a standout defender on the team which was third at the 1998 World Cup, a landmark result for the then-newly independent nation. His last coaching job was with Saudi club Al Fateh from July 2023 to August 2024.
See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here
FILE - In this Dec. 6, 2020, file photo, the then-West Bromwich Albion's manager Slaven Bilic is interviewed after the English Premier League soccer match between West Bromwich Albion and Crystal Palace at the Hawthorns in West Bromwich, England. (Mike Egerton/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - The then-Croatia's head coach Slaven Bilic talks to his players during a training session of Croatia at the Euro 2012 soccer championship in Warka, Poland, Tuesday, June 5, 2012. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic, File)
It’s been 135 days since the start of the Iran War, and a diplomatic solution seems shakier than ever. President Donald Trump said Monday that “we’re taking over the Strait of Hormuz,” a day after announcing that “we bombed the hell out of them.” Iran also asserted control of the formerly freely navigable waterway after retaliating with attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Oman.
And Congress is returning following the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham. His death after a tear in his aorta Saturday leaves Republicans with just 51 members, with Mitch McConnell still recovering and South Carolina’s governor needing to appoint Graham’s interim successor.
The Latest:
Mohammed Mokhber, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, says Tehran will fight for the Strait of Hormuz.
“We defend it so that in the future, for the passage of our ships, we are not forced to pay tribute to the enemy!” he wrote on X. “Retreating from this vital matter has no place in the mind of any friend of Iran.”
That’s what Trump said Monday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends.”
Both the U.S. and Iran asserted Monday that they controlled the Strait of Hormuz after a weekend of attacks stretching across the wider Middle East, further threatening any diplomacy to end the war.
Trump also said that “everything was agreed to” in an 11-hour meeting Sunday, but Iranian negotiators called back later “and they say, ’we had to make a couple of changes.” He didn’t specify details.
The latest exchange was sparked by an Iranian attack on a container ship on Sunday in the strait, a critical waterway for international oil and gas over which Iran has asserted control since the United States and Israel started the war on Feb. 28.
Congress is returning after a summer break, with the Senate convening following the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham. His death after a tear in his aorta Saturday leaves Republicans with just 51 members, with Mitch McConnell still recovering and South Carolina’s governor needing to appoint Graham’s interim successor.
This makes Trump’s already contentious congressional agenda even more uncertain. It also leaves Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy without a key ally who had Trump’s ear: Graham was a strong supporter of Ukraine, pressing the president to be firmer on Russia President Vladimir Putin. Now Zelenskyy and Kyiv are reeling from his death.
Albert Salgado, left, is comforted by his girlfriend at the site where his uncle Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot by an ICE officer in Houston on Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Annie Mulligan)
Palestinians gather around the site of an Israeli military drone strike on a blacksmith shop in Gaza City's Sabra neighborhood killing at least four Palestinians and wounded another, according to officials at Shifa hospital, where the casualties were taken on Sunday, July 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Three boys play in the shallow waters of the Strait of Hormuz, as a plume of smoke rises from an explosion in the background, off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Monday, July 13, 2026. (Razieh Poudat/ISNA via AP)
FILE - Former President Donald Trump listens as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks at a campaign event at the South Carolina Statehouse, Jan. 28, 2023, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
