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 analyst for the Austrian television and writes for Austrias 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 professional player. He played at the age of 16 for the first team of Austria Wien. Till 1980 he won with the team 4 Austrian league titles and 3 Austrian cup wins. 1980 he went to Italy where he played for Inter Mailand and later for AS Roma. In Italy he won the championship with Inter and the cup with Roma. From 1983 to 1989 he played again for FK Austria Wien and won another 3 championships and one cup. 1989 he retired from playing football.
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 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 1974–1989 he played 84 matches for Austria and shot 12 goals. With one of his goals he fixed 1977 versus Turkey the qualification of Austria for the FIFA World Cup 1978.
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)