Kühbauer’s lifelong fight crowned as LASK stun Celtic to reach Champions League | OneFootball

In AS’s reporting, Tuesday delivered one of Dietmar Kühbauer’s biggest career highs. LASK overturned a 3-0 first-leg deficit against Celtic, winning 5-4 after extra time at the Raiffeisen Arena to reach the Champions League group stage after 61 years away.

The comeback sparked jubilation across Linz. Kühbauer, 55 and from Heiligenkreuz, has forged a career on bite and intensity, an attacking midfielder with fine vision at Mattersburg and Rapid Vienna. He won a league title with Rapid and reached the 1996 Cup Winners’ Cup final, losing to PSG, then played the 1998 World Cup with Austria.

His 1997 move to Real Sociedad was scarred by tragedy after he sought a foreign posting via an internet advert that limited flights to within two hours of Austria. Coach Bernd Krauss, then at the helm, signed him, but his wife Michaela, three months pregnant, was badly injured en route to collect him at Vienna airport, fell into an irreversible coma and died that September while he recovered in Austria from a broken collarbone with the national team.

Despite the trauma, he debuted in La Liga and helped Real finish third in his first season, scoring two in 20 games to secure a UEFA Cup berth. Injuries and Javier Clemente’s arrival curtailed his stay, which ended at 56 appearances and two goals before a move to Wolfsburg. He captained there, then, with minutes dwindling, returned in 2002 to Mattersburg in the second tier, leading promotion, two cup finals and UEFA Cup runs before retiring in 2007.

Kühbauer moved into coaching with Admira Wacker’s youth sides in 2012, later shaping Wolfsberger AC and Rapid Vienna with a combative, disciplined edge. After a year at LASK, he spent 2024 back at Wolfsberger, then, nine games into the following campaign, used a clause to return to LASK. In his second season at the helm in Linz, that turnaround has elevated him to the European spotlight, with the draw set for Monaco on Thursday 27 August at 18.00.

Source: AS

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