Herbert Prohaska

Herbert Prohaska
Personal information
Full name	Herbert Prohaska
Date of birth	8 August 1955 (age 69)
Place of birth	Vienna, Austria
Height	1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Position(s)	Midfielder
Youth career
	Vorwärts XI
1970–1972	Ostbahn XI
Senior career*
Years	Team
1972–1980	Austria Vienna
1980–1982	Inter Milan
1982–1983	Roma
1983–1989	Austria Vienna
Total
National team
1974–1989	Austria
Teams managed
1990–1992	Austria Vienna
1993–1999	Austria
1999–2000	Austria Vienna
	* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only

Herbert Prohaska (born 8 August 1955 in Vienna, Austria) is a retired Austrian football player. He is among Austria's greatest football players of all time. His nickname "Schneckerl", Viennese dialect for curly hair, comes from his curly haircut in his younger years. He works as an analyst for Austrian television and writes for Austria's most popular newspaper.

Career

Prohaska was born into a working class family. His father was a worker and his mother cleaned rooms. His father was coach of a youth team of Vorwärts XI. Here Prohaska started his career at the age of 9, then he played for the minor league club SC Ostbahn XI in Vienna. Then he went on to FK Austria Wien and became a professional player. He played at the age of 16 for the first team of Austria Wien. Between 1972 and 1980 he won four Austrian league titles and three cups. In 1980 he went to Italy where he played for Inter Milan and later for AS Roma. In Italy he won the championship with Inter and the cup with Roma. From 1983 to 1989 he played for FK Austria Wien and won another three championships and one cup. He retired from playing football in 1989.

Shortly afterwards he became coach of Austria Wien an won the championship twice. 1993 he became coach of the football national team. His biggest success was the qualification for the FIFA World Cup in 1998 as winner of the group stage. 1999 he resigned after a 0:9 defeat versus Spain. But in his era the team was number 17 in the FIFA team ranking, a place which could not reach another team coach ever since. From 1999 till 2000 he was again coach of Austria Wien.

After the end of his football career he became an analyst for Austrian Television (ORF) and he wrote for the newspaper "Kronen-Zeitung". In 2011 he was elected "Austria Wien player of the century".

International career

From 1974 to 1989 he played 84 matches for Austria and scored 12 goals. One of his goals, against Turkey, helped Austria to qualify for the 1978 FIFA World Cup.

Honours

Player:

7x Austrian Champion with FK Austria Wien: 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1984, 1985, 1986
4x Austrian Cup with FK Austria Wien: 1974, 1977, 1980, 1986
1x Champion Italy Seria A with AS Roma: 1983
1x Italian Cup with Inter Mailand: 1982
FIFA World Cup:1978, 1982
3x Austrian Footballer of the Year: 1984, 1985, 1988
FK Austria Wien:Team of the century

Coach:

2x Austrian Champion with FK Austria Wien: 1991, 1992
2x Austrian Cup with FK Austria Wien: 1990, 1992
FIFA World Cup: 1998

Reading

ballesterer fm Nr.68 January,February 2012-Prohaska, Austrianer, Held & Hawara (German language-main article about Herbert Prohaska)

Other websites

Player profile Archived 2012-10-14 at the Wayback Machine – Austria Archive
UEFA.com article on Austria's Golden Player
Career stats – National Football Teams