Herbert Prohaska

**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.

## International statistics

|National team|Year|Apps|Goals||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|rowspan="14"|Austria|1974|1|0|
|1975|7|1|||
|1976|7|1|||
|1977|8|1|||
|1978|13|0|||
|1979|7|3|||
|1980|7|0|||
|1981|5|2|||
|1982|10|1|||
|1983|4|0|||
|1984|6|1|||
|1985|4|0|||
|1988|1|0|||
|1989|3|0|||

- _Scores and results list Austria's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Prohaska  goal._

|scope="col"|No.|scope="col"|Date|scope="col"|Venue|scope="col"|Opponent|scope="col"|Score|scope="col"|Result|scope="col"|Competition|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|1|15 October 1975|Prater Stadion,  Vienna, Austria||6-2|6-2|UEFA Euro 1976 qualification||||||||
|2|15  December 1976|National Stadion,  Ramat Gan, Israel||1-1|3-1|Friendly match||||||||
|3|30 October 1977|Atatürk Stadi,  İzmir, Turkey||1-0|1-0|1978 FIFA World Cup qualification||||||||
|4|29 August 1979|Prater Stadion,  Vienna, Austria||2-0|4-0|UEFA Euro 1980 qualification||||||||
|5|26 September 1979|Prater Stadion,  Vienna, Austria||1-0|3-1|Friendly match||||||||
|6|2-0|||||||||||||
|7|17 June 1981|Linzer Stadion,   Linz,  Austria||1-0|5-1|1982 FIFA World Cup qualification||||||||
|8|2-0|||||||||||||
|9|17 November 1982|Gerhard-Hanappi-stadium, Vienna,  Austria||3-0|4-0|Friendly match||||||||
|10|2 May 1984|Makario,    Nikosia,  Cyprus||2-1|2-1|1986 FIFA World Cup qualification||||||||

## 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  – Austria Archive
- UEFA.com article on Austria's Golden Player
- Career stats – National Football Teams