Ex-Ried trainer is a specialist in delicate cases

It’s a little football fairytale that the Rieder ex-coach Petar Segrt with Tajikistan is currently writing. And this fairytale isn’t over yet after the 5-3 penalty shootout victory over the United Arab Emirates. The 57-year-old and his team reached the quarter-finals of the Asia Cup. A team that had never been able to qualify for the continental championship before.

The coach, who once looked after SV Ried for five months, has become a globetrotter with a penchant for extraordinary destinations. From war zones like Afghanistan and Georgia to dream islands like Bali or the Maldives. Segrt is looking for adventure.

The one in Ried ended after just five months in 2003. He took over the team after relegation to the second division.

The path of the then very young 36-year-old head coach was not the right one: the “veterans” should be shaved. Oliver Glasner said goodbye to another club (LASK) for the only time in his playing career, Michael Angerschmid returned after a suspension. Herwig Drechsel a second playmaker was put in front of the nose. The project went wrong, shortly after the move from the old to the new Rieder stadium was completed a few weeks after the start of the league, the Segrt era was called off. A season later, the Rieders returned after the return of Glasner and the manager Stefan Reiter back to the Bundesliga – and subsequently wrote Austrian football history there with their veterans as runners-up, cup winners and multiple European Cup participants.

“Man of Hope”

For Segrt, however, a trip around the world began – in Georgia, when his sponsor, ex-top coach, met him Klaus Topmöller, signed on as an assistant. Segrt stayed when the ex-Leverkusen player said goodbye. The Croatian-born man with German roots stayed when Russian troops invaded during the Caucasus War – and gave political speeches to thousands of spectators.

But all of this is nothing compared to the commitment in Afghanistan. Here he is given the title “Man of Hope”. “That touched me the most deeply. A player once said before a game: ‘Coach, we thank you for these 90 minutes, so that we could forget the hell we are living in. You are our man of hope.’ I swallowed.” Segrt therefore doesn’t think much of team building activities. “If you experience bombings like I did in Afghanistan, or if one of your players loses his entire family in a boat accident in the Maldives – and we support him all night – then you don’t need team building.”

Segrt’s recipe for success

Segrt’s recipe for success has not changed. Whoever follows him follows him blindly. And these are mainly young players. There are only two kickers in the current squad who are older than 30. “There is incredible potential,” says Segrt. The results at the Asian Cup confirm this thesis.