Searching for Didi Kuhbauer: the Mysterious Austrian Legend You’ve Never Heard Of

In the fall of 2016, Christian Fuchs wrote an article in the Players’ Tribune on his successful season at Leicester City. You already know the fairy tale. Claudio Ranieri ordered pizza parties after wins, and Leicester stormed to a shocking Premier League trophy. Yet one line of Fuchs’ article intrigued me: a name I didn’t recognize. Dietmar “Didi” Kuhbauer.

In his early years, Fuchs played a handful of seasons with a-then-aging Kuhbauer, but spoke highly of him. Apparently, Kuhbauer was a legend in Austria, one I’d never heard of. Even great international publications like In Bed With Maradona or The Blizzard didn’t have a piece on Kuhbauer.

Thus, I resolved to find out all I could about Kuhbauer and share his story with the rest of the world.

As a disclaimer, I don’t speak German. English language internet searches for Kuhbauer turned up zilch. Google. Yahoo. Even Lycos, Hotbot, and Altavista were more worthless than usual. I asked Jeeves; he had no reply. All I had to go on was a bare bones Wiki-page.

From there I read match reports from his games for Rapid Vienna and the national team to track down old Youtube clips of the games. I couldn’t understand the German-speaking announcers, but I could sense the emotion in their voices watching him play.

Kuhbauer played for Austria during some dark times for the national team. In 1992, they lost to the Faroe Islands. In 1996, the team started very poorly in their Euro qualifying group. That’ however is when “Didi” came into the picture. In Kuhbauer’s first qualifier, Austria destroyed Latvia 5-0. He then scored the first goal in a 7-0 rout over Lichtenstein.

He also started in two 3-1 wins over Ireland in Dublin and Vienna, games that left a scar on the Emerald Isle. Though Austria played spoilers, they missed out on qualifying by a single point. The 1-1 tie with Portugal and the last minute loss to Latvia were missed opportunities.

Two years later, however, Austria qualified for France 98. They ended up in a group with Italy, Chile, and Cameroon. Didi was at the peak of his powers and started all three games. You can see the Cameroon game in its entirety here. I watched all three matches.

In many ways, Didi’s style epitomized the 1990s. He was a box-to-box midfielder in a four-four-two, the ubiquitous formation of that era; he was a hard runner and harder tackler. Still, it wasn’t all about brawn. Kuhbauer was ambidextrous and loved to play lightning-quick rolling passes on the ground to a forward’s feet. He had a nose for danger, often sprinting back 40 yards to commit a smart foul and snuff out a counterattack.

It was all for naught. Despite drawing the first two games vs. Cameroon and Chile, Austria lost to Italy in the last group stage game and failed to advance. Worse, the team failed to qualify for the next European Championship and the next World Cup. Didi was a lone bright spot during a forgettable era for the Austrian national team.

He did enjoy some success at the club level. Didi played for Rapid Vienna from 1992-1997, and won the Austrian Championship and Austria Cup once each. Historically, this was a bit of a barren patch for the club, but it was more than compensated by an exciting run in Europe for the 1996 UEFA Cup Winner’s Cup.