Memorial Page for Alfred Tatar

Alfred Tatar (born 8 August 1963 in Zillingdorf; died 14 May 2026) was an Austrian football player, coach and television analyst. He played for clubs including Wiener Sport-Club, First Vienna and VSE St. Pölten, later coached SV Ried, First Vienna and SV Mattersburg, and became widely known through his pointed analyses on Sky Sport Austria.

Player and first coaching steps

Tatar came from Lower Austria and moved early in Vienna's football landscape. As a midfielder he played for clubs including Wiener Sport-Club, First Vienna and VSE St. Pölten. In 1983 he captained Austria's under-20 team at the World Youth Championship in Mexico. His later view of football grew from close contact with the everyday game: dressing room, training ground, second-division football, regional club culture and the many decisions that shape a match beyond simple statistics.

Ried, Admira and Russia

After his playing career Tatar moved to the touchline. At SV Ried he first worked as an assistant coach and in 2001 took over as head coach. Further stations followed at Admira and as assistant to Rashid Rakhimov. This connection also took him to Russia, to Amkar Perm and Lokomotiv Moscow. The years abroad broadened his view of football: Tatar later spoke not only about systems, but also about mentality, spaces and the character of a match.

Vienna and Mattersburg

Tatar remained especially closely connected with First Vienna. From 2010 he was head coach there for more than one hundred competitive matches. His way of describing Vienna's football was idiosyncratic and self-ironic. The phrase antithesis to Barcelona became part of his reputation: Tatar could name weaknesses without taking dignity away from his club. In 2013 he took over SV Mattersburg, where the sporting task after relegation from the Bundesliga remained difficult.

Television analyst with his own language

Tatar later became familiar to a larger audience as an analyst on Sky Sport Austria. He explained football with humour, imagery and close observation. His analyses stood out because they joined expertise with self-irony. Tatar could take a match seriously and at the same time look at it from a distance. That made him a defining voice of Austrian football for many viewers.

Illness and withdrawal

About two years before his death, Tatar was diagnosed with ALS. In the summer of 2025 he ended his work as a television analyst for health reasons and increasingly withdrew from public life. On 12 May 2026 First Vienna presented a special Alfred Tatar edition in support of ALS research. The gesture showed how strongly many supporters still connected him with the club and with a particular, independent attitude to football.

Farewell

Alfred Tatar died on 14 May 2026 at the age of 62. Austrian football mourned a man who filled several roles: player, coach, assistant abroad, analyst and narrator of the game. What made him special was the combination of expertise, independence, humour and the ability to explain football in a way that made its contradictions visible.