Zidane, Klopp start fresh and Ronaldo goes on as European national teams return after World Cup

GENEVA (AP) — Champions League-winning coaches Zinedine Zidane and Jürgen Klopp debut in their new careers this week when national team soccer returns in Europe after the World Cup, with Cristiano Ronaldo still in action at 41.

The Zidane era starting for France at Turkey and Germany under Klopp in the Netherlands highlight the Nations League program filling the first four-game, two-weekend break on the FIFA international calendar where coaches are the fresh attraction as much as their players.

Thomas Tuchel is a third Champions League winner among the 54 European national teams in action, with his England hosting Spain on Saturday in what was so close to being the World Cup final in July.

Spain coach Luis de la Fuente — with a fresh contract extension through 2032 — is the current king of international coaches as a low-key hire in 2022 promoted from within the federation who then won European and world titles at the first attempt.

Not bad for a 65-year-old who coached the grand total of 11 first-team club games in his career, all in the Spanish second tier, 15 years ago for Alavés.

This break from club soccer in the European fall for national teams is the first in the reshaped international match calendar managed by FIFA. That schedule mandates when clubs must release players to national teams.

Club leaders had for years wanted fewer but longer international breaks to limit disruption in their seasons and ensure players from outside Europe made fewer long-haul flights to represent their country.

FIFA pushed the idea in 2021 in its failed plan to play World Cups every two years instead of four. In 2023, FIFA approved combining two-game breaks in September and October into a single block of four.

Zidane was an elegant, all-time great player and then a dominant coach. He won three straight Champions League titles in his first 2½-year spell at Real Madrid into 2018.

He finally got to succeed former club and country teammate Didier Deschamps, and greatness is expected from Zidane’s mentoring of a richly talented Les Bleus squad captained by Kylian Mbappé.

“I’ve waited five years for this chance, so that’s why I’m a bit emotional,” the 54-year-old Zidane said in July after getting the job that seemed destined since his second Madrid spell ended in 2021.

Zidane inherits a team stopped twice with ease at the semifinals by De la Fuente’s Spain in the past two tournaments.

France did beat Spain in the 2021 Nations League final. The path back starts Friday against Turkey at Izmit then three days later in Brussels against Belgium. Italy and Belgium then come to Stade de France.

Klopp was denied a first Champions League with Liverpool in 2018 by Zidane’s Madrid hat trick in Kyiv. The title arrived one year later against Tottenham.

Two years after leaving Anfield, Klopp takes over a Germany team seeming in need of his refreshed energy and inspiration. Germany last won a World Cup knockout game in the 2014 final and has not reached a Euros final since 2008.

Klopp made a big impact announcing his first squad: picking 44 players — two groups to play two games each — and wearing a cap with a slogan designed to reclaim the national flag from far-right politics.

The Klopp era starts at neighboring Netherlands on Thursday, hosting Greece in Augsburg and Serbia in Munich, then going to Greece on Oct. 4.

The other German star coach in play this week, Tuchel, had England within 10 minutes of reaching a first World Cup final in 60 years.

He claimed last week “99.9%” of fans don’t focus on his choice of substitutions and tactics to defend a one-goal lead late in the semifinal that Argentina won 2-1. Still, it’s a memory seared into the Three Lions’ national soccer story.

Tuchel can start shaping a new narrative at Wembley on Saturday against World Cup winner Spain. Their group also includes Croatia and the Czech Republic.

Any doubt 41-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo would continue with Portugal after another World Cup elimination should have ended before the tournament was done. The federation hired a new coach in 72-year-old Jorge Jesus, whose previous job was leading Ronaldo and Al Nassr to a Saudi league title in May.

Ronaldo was duly named in the first Jesus squad last week, looking to add to 233 national team games and 146 goals.

Portugal is the Nations League champion and starts its defense Thursday hosting Wales.

It should be a first Erling Haaland vs. Ronaldo meeting Sunday in Oslo. Only one of Ronaldo’s 233 Portugal games was against Norway, in 2011 when Haaland was aged 10. Now 26, Haaland already has 62 goals for Norway, including seven in just five games at the World Cup.

Scotland now has a Belgian coach (Sebastian Pocognoli ), Belgium a Dutch coach ( Mark van Bommel ), and the Netherlands a Spanish coach (Xavi Hernández).

Xavi has replaced Ronald Koeman for the second time in their careers, having followed the Dutch great into the Barcelona dugout in 2021. Xavi now leads the team he helped beat in the 2010 World Cup final.

Italy has not been a World Cup team for 12 years but looked back at its European Championship title win in 2021 to hire Roberto Mancini for a second time.

The 16 top-ranked teams play in four round-robin groups through November. The top two in each group advance to quarterfinals played over two legs in March.

A Final Four mini-tournament from June 9-13 will be hosted by one of the semifinalists.

A further 16 teams play in each of the second-tier League B and third-tier League C, with six low-ranked teams in League D. Russia is still banned from international soccer.

The final standings will help some teams enter qualifying playoffs in March 2028 for that year's European Championship.

See AP’s full soccer coverage here

France's Zinedine Zidane leaves the training session with the French national team at the national soccer team training center in Clairefontaine, west of Paris, France, Monday Sept. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/ Thomas Padilla)

Head coach of the German national soccer team Juergen Klopp speaks during a press conference one week ahead of their first Nations League match, in Frankfurt, Germany, Thursday Sept. 17. 2026. (Boris Roessler/dpa via AP)

FILE - Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo holds the trophy after winning the Nations League soccer championship at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany, Sunday, June 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)

Coach of the France national soccer team, Zinedine Zidane, attends a media conference at the headquarters of French Football Federation headquarters to unveil the squad for the upcoming UEFA Nations League, in Paris, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — With wars raging,temperatures rising and artificial intelligence encroaching, leaders from across the planet converge at the United Nations on Tuesday to address each other and the world, airing their hopes, plans and grievances as the world body’s chief addresses them for the final time.

The annual high-level gathering at the U.N. General Assembly will be consumed with wars in Iran, Gaza, Ukraine,Sudan, Congo and Myanmar and a persisting question: Can the leaders do anything to end them?

And what can they do about the relentless rise of global warming threatening the future of the planet, the growing inequalities within and among nations, and shocks to the global economy as blocked shipping routes and supply chains increase the cost of living and slow growth?

The future of the United Nations will also definitely be on the agenda. At 81, its powers are still the victorious nations from World War II, not the 21st century’s major global players. The U.N.’s 193 member nations have agreed to a wide-ranging reform package that includes updating key institutions such as the powerful U.N. Security Council, where the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France hold inordinate sway because of their veto power. Reform, however, is easier said than implemented.

Behind the scenes, there will be speculation about who will lead the United Nations next. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ second five-year term ends Dec. 31 and no clear successor has emerged.

There is still no question that the U.N. remains the key gathering place for its 193 member nations and their leaders. Some 130 heads of state and government are expected to speak at the General Assembly starting Tuesday along with dozens of ministers.

Among the headliners: U.S. President Donald Trump and French President Emanuel Macron. Both will speak Tuesday after Guterres’ opening “state of the world” address. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian speak Wednesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — whom New York Mayor Zoran Mamdani wanted arrested for his treatment of Palestinians in Gaza until he learned he has no such authority — will address the assembly on Thursday. For a second year, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas won’t be coming to the U.N. because the U.S. has refused to give him a visa. He will nonetheless address the assembly by video the same day.

The United States, under its agreement with the U.N. to host the organization, is required to allow diplomats from all member nations to attend meetings.

Equally telling is who else isn’t coming. China’s President Xi Jinping is meeting Trump in Washington on Wednesday, yet he is skipping — some diplomats say snubbing — the U.N. gathering and sending a vice president instead. Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t coming either, and Indian President Narendra Modi has backed out.

France's U.N. ambassador, Jerome Bonnafont, said it is “extremely critical” for world leaders this week to support the U.N. as the place where the world’s nations meet — especially at a time of such polarization.

“We believe in multilateralism," he said, "and we believe that the high-level week is the occasion for countries in the world to reaffirm that they prefer cooperation and dialogue to confrontation.”

There is no doubt it’s been a tough year for the world body. It has been pushed to the sidelines when it comes to its key responsibility of ensuring international peace and security and trying to end major conflicts in the Mideast and Ukraine. The U.S. failure to pay billions of dollars in outstanding arrears has left the organization’s finances in rocky shape.

Former U.N. deputy secretary-general Mark Malloch-Brown, a United Nations Foundation board member, said, “While the world still trusts the U.N., the global public is eager for change."

The future of artificial intelligence has pushed to the forefront of global concerns, with its speeding advances and the dawning recognition that there are no industry controls, let alone any global guardrails for a technology that has many advantages but also many disadvantages and unknowns.

Days before the global gathering, leaders of three major AI companies warned about the technology getting out of human control and called for a pause, but Trump dismissed their concerns as “a hoax,” and urged continued advances to keep the U.S. ahead of China.

The U.N. Security Council added a high-level meeting on AI to its agenda on Wednesday afternoon, a sign of the growing apprehension and need to address the issue. It was already slated to hold a high-level meeting on Ukraine with Zelenskyy on Wednesday morning.

For the U.N. chief, this will be his last assembly meeting with global leaders. He previewed his speech last week, telling U.N. reporters that power is shifting in “an era of deep uncertainty."

“At a time when the world faces three existential threats," he said, “international cooperation is more necessary than ever.”

Edith M. Lederer has covered international affairs for The Associated Press for more than a half century.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen attends the Partnership for Multilateralism Summit on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the UN headquarters, Monday, Sept. 21, 2026. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)

The flag of the United Nations flies during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the UN headquarters, Monday, Sept. 21, 2026. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)

People pose as they arrive for the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the UN headquarters, Monday, Sept. 21, 2026. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)

The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the United Nations headquarters, Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/David R Martin)