Edin Dzeko will play a 152nd and final match for Bosnia-Herzegovina next month before ending his 19-year international career.
In an emotional post on Instagram, the 40-year-old striker wrote he would be retiring from national team duty after a Nations League qualifier against Sweden in the Bosnian city of Zenica on Oct. 2.
“Now I feel the time has come to step aside,” wrote Dzeko, who played for Bosnia at this year's World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico. “If I have made it to the age of 40 with the national team it is because I truly gave everything I had. Every time. Everything.”
Dzeko has 73 goals for Bosnia and has often carried the team on his shoulders. He also played, and scored, at the World Cup in 2014 — Bosnia's first as an independent soccer nation since the former Yugoslavia broke up in regional wars during his childhood.
“I just hope you will be there that night against Sweden, so we can share one more emotion,” Dzeko wrote. "Because every one of these incredible moments has been something we have lived together.
“And that is how I want to experience my final night representing my country: with all of you by my side, wearing the shirt I have loved since I was a boy — and the shirt I will love for the rest of my life.”
Dzeko helped Schalke clinch promotion to the Bundesliga last season and has just signed a one-year deal with the German club.
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Schalke's Edin Dzeko, center, celebrates scoring during the German soccer cup match between Hallescher FC and FC Schalke 04 in Halle, Germany, Monday Aug. 24, 2026. (Hendrik Schmidt/dpa via AP)
Stocks rose in morning trading Thursday on Wall Street as bond yields eased further even as oil prices marched higher as the U.S. war with Iran escalates.
The S&P 500 was up 0.5%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 340 points, or 0.6%, as of 10:01 a.m. Eastern time. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.7%. The indexes are coming off their first gain after a three-day slide.
Nvidia rose 1.9% after the giant chip company said it would buy the artificial intelligence platform Hugging Face for $13 billion.
Oil prices ticked higher as the six-month long U.S. war with Iran intensified.
Iran fired at Kuwait on Thursday in retaliation for U.S. bombardments earlier in the week. The fighting between the U.S. and Iran heated up after the U.S. hit Iranian rocket launchers Sunday on an island in the Strait of Hormuz, saying Iran was planning to use them to send mines into the waterway.
The renewed fighting has sent U.S. crude prices sharply higher this week, up 11%, a trend that continued Thursday. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 0.6% to $96.23 per barrel. Benchmark U.S. crude rose 1.2% to $92.12 a barrel.
Rising oil prices have added to existing inflationary pressures and exacerbated a bond-market sell-off earlier this week.
But bond yields have shown signs of stabilizing.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which tends to impact mortgage rates, dropped to 4.75% from 4.79% late Wednesday. It has been rising steadily throughout the year and was as low as 4.20% at the beginning of 2026.
The yield on the 2-year Treasury, which closely tracks expectations for Federal Reserve moves on interest rates, slid to 4.32% from 4.39%. It remains significantly higher for the year, though, and was as low as 3.50% at the beginning of 2026.
In economic news, the Labor Department reported Thursday that more Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, but layoffs are still rare and jobless claims remain at historically low levels.
On Friday, the crucial U.S. employment report for August is released.
Markets rose Europe, but were mixed in Asia.
Specialist Anthony Matesic works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Friday, Aug. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Specialists Dilip Patel works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Currency traders work at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)