Dietmar ("Didi") Kühbauer (born 4 April 1971) is an Austrian professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

coach and a former

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

. He is the

head coach A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manager", as in asso ...

LASK Linzer Athletik-Sport-Klub, commonly known as Linzer ASK () or simply LASK, is an Austrian professional football club, from the Upper-Austrian state capital Linz. It is the oldest football club in that region, and plays in the Austrian Football ...

Career

Born in Heiligenkreuz,

Burgenland Burgenland (; hu, Őrvidék; hr, Gradišće; Austro-Bavarian: ''Burgnland;'' Slovene: ''Gradiščanska'') is the easternmost and least populous state of Austria. It consists of two statutory cities and seven rural districts, with a total of ...

, Kühbauer started his professional career at Admira Wacker, making his

Austrian Football Bundesliga The Austrian Football Bundesliga (german: Österreichische Fußball-Bundesliga, italic=no , "Austrian Football Federal League"), also known as Admiral Bundesliga for sponsorship reasons, is the top level of the Austrian football league system. The ...

debut in 1987, at 16 years of age. After five years he moved to city rivals

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, ...

with whom he won a league and domestic cup title. He also played in the 1996

UEFA Cup Winners Cup The UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was a European football club competition contested annually by the winners of domestic cup competitions. The cup was, chronologically, the second seasonal inter-European club competition organised by UEFA. The tournam ...

Final against Paris St Germain in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, which Rapid lost. "Don Didi" is still considered a star among the Rapid fans. In 1999, he was chosen in Rapid's Team of the Century. In 1997, after becoming the first international to advertise his availability on the Internet, he moved abroad to join

La Liga The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known simply as Primera División in Spain, and as La Liga in English-speaking countries and officially as LaLiga Banco Santander, Santander for sponsorship reasons, stylized as LaL ...

side

Real Sociedad Real Sociedad de Fútbol, S.A.D., more commonly referred to as Real Sociedad (; ''Royal Society''), La Real in Spanish, Erreala in Basque, is a Spanish professional sports club in the city of San Sebastián, Basque Country, founded on 7 Septemb ...

. In 2000 he signed for German

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footb ...

outfit

VfL Wolfsburg Verein für Leibesübungen Wolfsburg e. V., commonly known as VfL Wolfsburg () or Wolfsburg, is a German professional sports club based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony. The club grew out of a multi-sports club for Volkswagen workers in the city of W ...

. Two years later, he returned to Austria to play for his childhood team

SV Mattersburg SV Mattersburg was an Austrian association football club from Mattersburg, Burgenland. History The club was formed in 1922 and played its home games at the 17,100 capacity Pappelstadion. The club played in the Bundesliga since the 2003– ...

where he finished his playing career after the 2007–08 season.

International career

He made his debut for

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

in a May 1992 friendly match against

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

and was a participant at the

1998 FIFA World Cup The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the football world championship for men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. The country was chosen as the host nation by FIFA for t ...

. He earned 55 caps, scoring five goals. On 4 September 2005, he announced his retirement from international matches. His final international was a September 2005 World Cup qualification match against

Coaching career

On 18 November 2008, he signed a contract by Trenkwalder Admira II as head coach. In 2010, he became coach of the first squad and led the team to the promotion to the Austrian Football Bundesliga. From September 2013 to November 2015 he was the trainer of

Wolfsberger AC Wolfsberger AC, commonly referred to as Wolfsberg or simply WAC, is an Austrian association football club from Wolfsberg, Carinthia, who currently play in the Austrian Bundesliga. Between the 2007–08 and 2011–12 seasons, Wolfsberger AC entere ...

. On 1 October 2018, Kühbauer was announced to become the new head coach of SK Rapid Wien, after only a half year at SKN St. Pölten.Willkommen Zuhause, Didi Kühbauer
skrapid.at, 1 October 2018

Personal tragedy

On 16 February 1997, Kühbauer's pregnant wife Michaela drove to

Vienna International Airport Vienna International Airport (german: Flughafen Wien-Schwechat; ) is the international airport of Vienna, the capital of Austria, located in Schwechat, southeast of central Vienna and west of Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. It is the ...

to pick him up after Rapid had enjoyed a winter break in

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, wikt:دبي, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the List of cities in the United Arab Emirates#Major cities, most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 ...

. Tragedy happened when her car slewed off the road near

Eisenstadt Eisenstadt (; hu, Kismarton; hr, Željezni grad; ; sl, Železno, Austro-Bavarian: ''Eisnstod'') is a city in Austria, the state capital of Burgenland. It had a recorded population on 29 April 2021 of 15,074. In the Habsburg Empire's Kingdom ...

and she was rushed to hospital, with three ribs having punctured her lung. She fell into a coma and died on 13 September 1997. A disillusioned Kühbauer then left Austria to start a new career abroad.

Managerial statistics

Honours

Player

Rapid Wien *

: 1995–96 *

Austrian Cup The Austrian Cup (german: ÖFB-Cup), known as UNIQA ÖFB Cup for sponsorship purposes, is an annual football competition held by the Austrian Football Association, the ÖFB. During the 2008–09 season, Austria Wien won the tournament for 27th t ...

: 1994–95

Coach

FC Admira Mödling *

Austrian Football First League The Austrian Football Second League (german: 2. Liga) is the second-highest professional division in Austrian football. It was formerly called the First League (''Erste Liga''), from 2002 to 2018. The division currently contains 16 teams, and t ...

2010–11 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. ...

References

External links

Dietmar Kühbauer
at Rapid Archiv * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kuhbauer, Dietmar 1971 births Living people People from Jennersdorf District Association football midfielders Austrian footballers Austria international footballers 1998 FIFA World Cup players FC Admira Wacker Mödling players SK Rapid Wien players Real Sociedad footballers VfL Wolfsburg players SV Mattersburg players Austrian Football Bundesliga players La Liga players Bundesliga players Expatriate footballers in Spain Expatriate footballers in Germany Austrian football managers FC Admira Wacker Mödling managers Footballers from Burgenland Austrian expatriate sportspeople in Spain Wolfsberger AC managers SK Rapid Wien managers SKN St. Pölten managers LASK managers