Peter Persidis (8 March 1947 – 21 January 2009) was an international Austrian

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

Career

His father Kostas Persidis was also a footballer in Greece. He played at Proodeftiki F.C. (1937-1939) and Aris Piraeous (1943-1944). Persidis started his professional career at

First Vienna First Vienna FC is an Austrian association football club based in the Döbling district of Vienna. Established on 22 August 1894, it is the country's oldest team and has played a notable role in the history of the game there. It is familiarly k ...

, than returned to his father's home country in the early 1970s, and went on to win three Greek titles with

Olympiacos Olympiacós Sýndesmos Filáthlon Peiraiós ( el, Ολυμπιακός Σύνδεσμος Φιλάθλων Πειραιώς, Olympic Club of Fans of Piraeus) is a major multi-sport club based in Piraeus, Greece. Olympiacos is parent to a number ...

prior to returning to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

in 1975 to play for

SK Rapid Wien Sportklub Rapid Wien (), commonly known as Rapid Vienna, is an Austrian football club playing in the country's capital city of Vienna. Rapid has won the most Austrian championship titles (32), including the first title in the season 1911–12, ...

. A sweeper, and the club's captain from 1978 to 1980, he won the 1981–82 Austrian title with Rapid under Hickersberger.

Coaching career

He coached VSE St. Pölten. He also later worked as

Josef Hickersberger Josef Hickersberger (born 27 April 1948) is a former professional football player and former coach of the Austria national football team and Austrian club side Rapid Wien. Club career Hickersberger was born in Amstetten, Austria. He started hi ...

's assistant at Rapid and was briefly the club's caretaker manager. Persidis took over as Under-19 head coach last summer, having previously worked as assistant to Hickersberger at UEFA EURO 2008. However, he was forced to step down soon afterwards after being diagnosed with a serious illness.

Death

Persidis died in Vienna on 21 January 2009 at the age of 61, with the Austrian Football Association holding a minute's silence in his honour at the national team's friendly against Sweden in Graz on 11 February.

External links

* *
Profile
- Rapidarchiv

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Persidis, Peter 1947 births 2009 deaths Footballers from Vienna Association football defenders Austrian footballers Austria international footballers 1978 FIFA World Cup players Olympiacos F.C. players SK Rapid Wien players Austrian Football Bundesliga players Expatriate footballers in Greece Austrian people of Greek descent Austrian football managers SK Rapid Wien managers Austrian expatriate footballers Austrian expatriate sportspeople in Greece SKN St. Pölten managers