Peter Persidis was a former international Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n footballer

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

.

Career

Persidis started his professional career at First Vienna, than returned to his father's home country in the early 1970s, and went on to win three Greek titles with Olympiacos prior to returning to Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 in 1975 to play for SK Rapid Wien

SK Rapid Wien

The Sportklub Rapid Wien is an Austrian football club playing in the country's capital city of Vienna. Rapid is the most popular club in Austria and also record title holder having won the Austrian national football title 32 times...

. 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

SKN St. Pölten

Sportklub Niederösterreich St. Poelten is an Austrian association football club from the provincial capital of the Austrian state of Lower Austria. St. Poelten currently play in the Austrian Football First League, which is the second tier of the Austrian football league system.- History :SKN St....

. He also later worked as Josef Hickersberger

Josef Hickersberger

Josef Hickersberger is a former professional football player and former coach of the Austria national football team and Austrian club side Rapid Wien.-Club career:...

'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 - Weltfussball
• Career stats - National Football Teams
• Profile - Rapidarchiv