Germany has hired Jürgen Klopp to coach its national team, giving the ex-Liverpool manager a daunting task to turn around the fortunes of a squad which failed yet again at the World Cup.
Klopp signed a contract to coach Germany through to the 2030 World Cup. Speaking shortly after the announcement Friday, he told a news conference in Frankfurt it was “a big honor” to take the job and signaled it could be his final role as coach.
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Newly appointed head coach of the German national soccer team Juergen Klopp attends a news conference at the headquarters of the German Football Association DFB in Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
Newly appointed head coach of the German national soccer team Juergen Klopp, center, poses for a photo with DFB President Bernd Neuendorf during a press conference at the headquarters of the German Football Association DFB in Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
Newly appointed head coach of the German national soccer team Juergen Klopp attends a news conference at the headquarters of the German Football Association DFB in Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
Newly appointed head coach of the German national soccer team Juergen Klopp attends a news conference at the headquarters of the German Football Association DFB in Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
Newly appointed head coach of the German national soccer team Juergen Klopp attends a news conference at the headquarters of the German Football Association DFB in Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
“Jürgen Klopp has no career after the national team,” he said. “Ideally, this will be the highlight of my career, my life, my working life. I will put everything into it that I possibly can.”
He replaces Julian Nagelsmann, who resigned amid heavy criticism after Germany’s loss to Paraguay meant it failed to reach the last 16 of a men’s World Cup for the third time in a row.
It is Klopp’s first coaching job since he left Liverpool in 2024 citing fatigue. He said he was “recharged” in comments while in talks over the Germany job.
Klopp signaled he plans to make some surprising squad selections and said his mission isn't just to win games, but to bring back a buzz around the team.
Klopp himself admitted that “it's been a while” since he watched national team games outside of major tournaments.
“I want to create something with the national team that means that people go home after the game and think ‘That was really cool.’ That's what I'd like to see happen,” he said.
Klopp said Friday he would be prepared to leave without any severance pay if it doesn’t work out, and threatened to resign if the media doesn’t “leave my family in peace.”
The man known for thrilling “heavy metal football” at Liverpool, Klopp was Germany’s preferred candidate as soon as Nagelsmann quit.
Over weeks of talks, the 59-year-old German — 20 years older than Nagelsmann — stayed in the United States as a World Cup pundit for a German-language broadcaster.
The federation also held talks with the Red Bull group, where Klopp spent the last year and a half as “head of global soccer” advising its worldwide group of soccer clubs.
German federation president Bernd Neuendorf said there wouldn’t be a typical release fee paid to Red Bull for Klopp. Instead, the federation pays one million euros ($1.14 million) to a Red Bull-linked charity and has agreed to hold three national team games in the eastern city of Leipzig, where Red Bull backs the city’s Bundesliga club team.
Klopp faces a tough introduction to his first national team job with four Nations League games in 11 days against the Netherlands, Greece and Serbia in late September and early October. The first major milestone will be the 2028 European Championship.
Germany hasn't won a knockout game at a World Cup since beating Argentina in the 2014 final. Now a player from that team will be working alongside Klopp.
Former defender Per Mertesacker joins Klopp as the federation's new managing director for sport, with a role overseeing the German men's national teams and an emphasis on bringing players through youth national teams to star for the senior team. He will start the role in January and joins after eight years running Arsenal's academy.
Klopp is reunited with two of his assistants from his Liverpool days, Peter Krawietz and Pep Lijnders, weeks after Lijnders left a role as Pep Guardiola's assistant at Man City. Ex-Germany player Sven Bender also takes an assistant role.
In an unusual arrangement, Klopp's longtime agent Marc Kosicke joins the coaching team in a role focusing on strategy and administration, but won't be a federation employee.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Newly appointed head coach of the German national soccer team Juergen Klopp attends a news conference at the headquarters of the German Football Association DFB in Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
Newly appointed head coach of the German national soccer team Juergen Klopp, center, poses for a photo with DFB President Bernd Neuendorf during a press conference at the headquarters of the German Football Association DFB in Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
Newly appointed head coach of the German national soccer team Juergen Klopp attends a news conference at the headquarters of the German Football Association DFB in Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
Newly appointed head coach of the German national soccer team Juergen Klopp attends a news conference at the headquarters of the German Football Association DFB in Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
Newly appointed head coach of the German national soccer team Juergen Klopp attends a news conference at the headquarters of the German Football Association DFB in Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
CHAPINERIA, Spain (AP) — Spain’s government declared a national emergency Friday after wildfires forced the evacuation of some 20,000 people from villages near Madrid, while in southern France more than 60,000 residents fled their homes, including by boat, to escape two major blazes.
“We are experiencing a dramatic situation, not just in several Spanish regions but also in neighboring countries,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wrote on X.
“My solidarity with all the people who have been affected and been forced to leave their homes.”
Authorities in southwestern France ordered more mass evacuations along the Atlantic coast because of the large wildfires. France’s Interior minister Laurent Nunez said 40,000 people have been evacuated in the Gironde department, and 23,000 in the Landes.
Spain and France both asked fellow European Union members for help.
“We will soon be able to rely on reinforcements including two Croatian Canadair firefighting aircraft, two Portuguese Air Tractor aircraft, and two heavy-lift Black Hawk helicopters from the Czech Republic and Slovakia,” French President Emmanuel Macron said.
Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said that Italy and Greece are each sending two Canadair water-dumping airplanes.
Southern Europe has seen multiple large fires this summer. Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures increasing twice as quickly as the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Scientists warn that climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness, making the region more vulnerable to wildfires.
The national emergency in Spain means that the nation’s interior ministry, which controls police and security forces, has taken charge of overseeing the firefighting efforts by Spain’s regions as they struggle to battle multiple blazes that are being fanned by a heatwave. Another large fire in the central province of Ávila prompted national authorities to step in.
“All around the town was smoke and fire, I was scared. Everything was fire and smoke, people were nervous,” 33-year-old Joaquin Espinosa told The Associated Press before he and his neighbors were evacuated from the village of Chapinería, located less than an hour's drive west of Madrid.
The regional government of Madrid, which spans a wide area around the capital city, said that around 18,000 people had been evacuated from different villages and towns west of the capital as multiple fires raged out of control late on Thursday.
“In my 60 years I have never seen something like this in my village, I have never seen fire of these dimensions,” Francisco Martínez, the mayor of Burgohondo, whose 1,500 residents were preventively evacuated in Ávila, told Spain’s national broadcaster TVE.
Spain's military emergency brigades and national firefighting brigades have mobilized to support regional firefighting units and water-dumping aircraft. Spanish Minister for the Ecological Transition Sara Aagesen said that Spain has seen an 1,140 square kilometers (440 square miles) already burned this year, more than five times the burned terrain it had through the first half of 2025.
Grande-Marlaska said that in addition to the major fires in Madrid and in Ávila that have required the national government to get directly involved, there are nine serious fires in other parts of Spain.
Temperatures are expected to top 39 degrees Celsius (102 Fahrenheit) in parts of Spain on Friday, with a high of 44 C (111 F) in Almeria in the southeast.
Spanish television showed video taken by retreating residents of walls of flames topped by long plumes of smoke advancing through woods and scrublands. High winds and hilly terrain complicated efforts by firefighters, who combated the blazes with firetrucks and bulldozers.
This year's fires include Spain's second-largest ever fire that consumed some 320 square kilometers (120 square miles) in recent days in the province of Guadalajara north of Madrid. Thirteen people were also killed in a fire in southern Spain earlier this month, the deadliest fire in recent memory for Spain.
Sánchez called on Wednesday for a pact between political parties to fight climate change that he said is key to adapting to a more fire-prone climate.
Authorities have not identified the cause of the fires near Madrid. Fires can be caused by sparks from agricultural machinery, lightning strikes, an errant cigarette or even intentional arson.
In France, some 100 square kilometers (38 square miles) have been burned by the blaze that has been raging since Wednesday near the touristic Cap Ferret peninsula.
Located just 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Bordeaux, the peninsula offers stunning landscapes and sandy beaches as well as oyster-farming villages and upmarket resorts.
More than 20,000 people had already been evacuated from towns and vacation resorts on Thursday. The new evacuations were carried out by road, with boat shuttles provided for people who could not travel by their own means.
Hundreds of firefighters have been deployed and additional ground and aerial reinforcements have been sent to tackle the blaze. Meanwhile, another major wildfire burned further south down the coast in the municipalities of Biscarrosse and Parentis-en-Born. It remained uncontained as strong winds did not help firefighters.
In Italy, wildfires continued to ravage parts of Sicily, with the central-western province of Agrigento particularly hard hit.
Italy’s national fire department reported late Thursday that it had mounted over 1,400 operations since last weekend, 240 of which were in the Agrigento area. By Friday, seven of Sicily’s nine provinces remained at the highest level of alert for wildfires, with only the eastern coastal provinces of Messina and Catania registering a lower risk level, the civil protection reported in its daily bulletin.
Fueled by temperatures that have topped 40C (104F), low humidity and winds, the blazes have forced scattered evacuations and were blamed for the death of a firefighter responding to a fire in Caltanissetta.
Globally, 2025 was the third-hottest year on record, bringing severe heat waves across Europe. Scientists warn that climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness especially in southeastern Europe, making the region more vulnerable to health impacts and wildfires.
Petrequin reported from Paris. Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain. Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.
Smoke and flames rise as a wildfire advances near Burgohondo, Ávila province, Spain, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
A firefighting helicopter drops water on the flames as a wildfire advances near Burgohondo, Ávila province, Spain, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
A burning barn is seen next to a farm house during wildfires near Le Porge, western France, Thursday, July 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Caroline Blumberg)
Wildfires advance near Le Proge region, western France, Thursday, July 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Caroline Blumberg)
A wall of flames advances as a wildfire burns near Burgohondo, in Ávila province, Spain, Thursday, July 23, 2026. (Mateo Lanzuela/Europa Press via AP)
Residents spend the night at a sports center after being evacuated from their homes because of the threat of a wildfire in Cebreros, Ávila province, Spain, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Residents spend the night at a sports center after being evacuated from their homes because of the threat of a wildfire in Cebreros, Ávila province, Spain, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Residents spend the night at a sports center after being evacuated from their homes because of the threat of a wildfire in Cebreros, Ávila province, Spain, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
