Alfred Riedl

Alfred Riedl (2 November 1949 – 8 September 2020 ) was an Austrian football player and manager. As a player he was a striker.

Playing career

Club career Riedl first played for Austria Wien from 1967 to 1972, before leaving Austria to play for the Belgian club Sint-Truiden at the age of 22. After he played eight seasons in the Belgian First Division (two with Sint-Truiden, two with Royal Antwerp and four with Standard Liège), Riedl enjoyed a brief spell at FC Metz in France. He came back to Austria after a single season there, to play for Grazer AK, and then at Wiener Sportclub and VfB Admira Wacker Mödling.

International career Riedl was capped four times for the Austria national football team, making his debut in April 1975 against Hungary.

Coaching career As a manager, Riedl coached Olympique Khouribga (Morocco, 1993–94), Al-Zamalek (Egypt, 1994–95), Al Salmiya (Kuwait, 2001–03), and many national teams, including Austria (1990–92), Liechtenstein (1997–98), Palestine (2004–05), Vietnam (1998–2001, 2003–04, 2005–07), and Laos (2009–10). In the 2007 AFC Asian Cup, he coached Vietnam to a 2–0 victory over UAE and help the team to get to the quarterfinal for the first time in history. Unfortunately, in late 2007, after the team's disappointing performance in the SEA Games 2007 competition, he was fired and replaced by the Portuguese coach Henrique Calisto. In October 2008, he returned to Vietnam to coach Hải Phòng. However, after only three matches with poor performance, he was dismissed. On 9 July 2009, he signed a contract as head coach of Laos, the contract was for two years.

Indonesia On 4 May 2010, Riedl was named the new coach of Indonesia's national and under-23 sides. He led the Indonesian national team to the 2010 AFF Suzuki Final but lost to Malaysia on 4–2 aggregate score. Then suddenly, on 13 July 2011, he lost his job because of a "contract dispute", after a highly publicized political power struggle within the Football Association of Indonesia (PSSI), and was replaced by Wim Rijsbergen.

After a return to Laos as technical director and Belgian club Visé as head of youth development, Riedl was reappointed as Indonesia national team head coach in December 2013, signing a three-year contract. His contract was terminated by mutual consent at the end of 2014, after Indonesia failed to qualify for the knockout stages of the 2014 AFF Suzuki Cup. Riedl then accepted the head coach job of PSM Makassar in early 2015, but resigned in April the same year before the league even started.

Rield returned as the head coach of Indonesia in 2016 on a one-year contract, and guided Indonesia to the finals of 2016 AFF Suzuki Cup. After Indonesia lost to Thailand 3–2 on aggregate in the finals, his contract was not renewed by PSSI.

Death Riedl died on 8 September 2020 in Austria due to cancer.

Honours

Player Austria Wien Austrian Football Championship: 1968–69, 1969–70 Austrian Cup: 1970–71

Grazer AK Austrian Cup: 1980–81

Individual Austrian Football Championship top scorer: 1971–72 Belgian First Division top scorer: 1972–73, 1974–75

Manager Olympique Club de Khouribga (Morocco) Moroccan Cup runner-up: 1994

Zamalek SC Egyptian Confederation Cup: 1995

Vietnam AFF Championship runner-up: 1998 Southeast Asian Games runner-up: 1999 King's Cup runner-up: 2006

Vietnam Olympic Southeast Asian Games runner-up: 2003, 2005

Indonesia AFF Championship runner-up: 2010, 2016