Cup finalist
©IMAGO
Ognjen Zaric has only been a coach at Bundesliga club SCR Altach since the beginning of January 2026 and yet he has already achieved something historic with the Vorarlbergers: For the first time in the club’s history, the Ländleklub is in the final of the ÖFB Cup. Zaric spoke to Transfermarkt.at about his beginnings in youth football, his positions in Germany and Switzerland and his successful return to Austria.
Via Kufstein to the Adeyemi sponsor
Zaric started his coaching career early on, starting in 2010, at the age of 21, as a youth coach at his hometown club FC Kufstein. Although the Tyrolean also tried his hand at being an active player, he quickly put his dream of profit aside: “I was able to assess well and realistically that it would not be enough for me to reach the professional level.” Therefore, Zaric decided to take a different path after graduating from high school; He initially studied law, and in addition to his studies, he began to obtain all coaching diplomas in 2010. “In Kufstein I started with the very small children, but then jumped higher and higher – to the U15, the U17. It developed at an incredible pace for me.”
After several years as a youth coach in Tyrolean amateur football, Zaric made the leap into paid football in 2014: He moved to the DFI (German Football Boarding School) in Bad Aibling. “That’s where I had to decide whether I wanted to pursue the path of becoming a full-time football coach – which is what I ultimately chose.” Zaric cites Pep Guardiola, among others, as role models at the beginning of his coaching career, whose football concept he emphasizes as formative. “But there are certainly also coaches who later inspired me due to similar circumstances. In addition to Julian Nagelsmann, that would also be Fabian Hürzeler, who I even met myself as a regional league coach in Rosenheim [Anm.: Hürzeler trainierte zwischen 2016 und 2020 den bayrischen Amateurklub FC Pipinsried]. Fabian Hürzeler and I were the two youngest coaches in the league. Like me, the two of them didn’t reach the highest level as players, but then went on to become coaches.”
After three years in Bad Aibling, Zaric took the next step in the 2017/18 season when he took over the U17 team of the then third division club SpVgg Unterhaching. “Unterhaching had a cooperation with Bad Aibling and scouted players for us – and ultimately wanted to take me with them as a coach.” This season, Zaric was particularly characterized by the increased level: “Preparation, follow-up, sophisticated thinking in all tactical facets – similar to professional level.” With the Hachingers in the U17 Bundesliga, he met, among others, Pellegrino Matarazzo (Hoffenheim, now Real Sociedad) and Holger Seitz (Bayern), who would later make a name for themselves in adult football. But Zaric also had a player in his own ranks who would later have a great career: Karim Adeyemi was already trained in the DFI by the Austrian and later supported by him in the U17 Unterhachings.
After a season in the U17 Bundesliga, Zaric took the next step in the summer of 2018: at the age of 29, he took over the Bavarian regional league team TSV 1860 Rosenheim and thus a team in the men’s division for the first time. “It was a completely new situation for me, training a team in the regional league where players worked during the day, but then sometimes played against teams in professional conditions.” However, the engagement in Rosenheim did not last long; After the team finished 16th (out of 18 teams) in the first half of the season, Zaric decided to say goodbye during the winter break due to a lack of prospects: “We then had a conversation in the winter about whether we wanted to turn the commitment into a long-term project. But I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to go down this path in semi-professional football.”
Zaric as Rosenheim coach (2018)
Zaric: “The club gave me the feeling that they really wanted me as a coach”
So it happened that Zaric was without a club for the first time in his young coaching career. He used this time for his family on the one hand, but also for further training, he says: “On the one hand, I continued my coaching diplomas, but on the other hand, I also sat in on LASK under Oliver Glasner and Ajax Amsterdam, among others.” After half a year without a club, Zaric came full circle in the summer of 2019 and took over the Tyrolean regional league team FC Kufstein as head coach and sporting director. “It was great for me to gain experience with squad planning and strategic decisions, which you have to make more often as a sporting director than as a coach.” The Kufstein project, which was designed to last three years, was then abruptly interrupted: “In the winter we had a good squad together – but then Corona came.” This also marked the end of Zaric’s time in Kufstein, as in the summer of 2020 a request from FC Basel came to Tyrol. “President Hannes Rauch also advised me that I had to do that.”
Zaric moved to Switzerland for the 2020/21 season and took over the U18 team of the former series champions. Under his leadership, the team only lost two of twelve games before Zaric was promoted in April 2021: Patrick Frame brought him into the professional coaching staff as an assistant. Frame was fired in February 2022, after which Zaric took over the Basel third division team as head coach for the 2022/23 season; He coached Basel’s U21s until March 2023.
In the summer of 2023, Frame was called again, having been hired by league rival Winterthur. With the weakest team in the Swiss league in terms of budget, the duo sensationally reached the championship group in the 2023/24 season, finishing last. Frame was then signed by champions Young Boys in the summer of 2024, and Zaric followed in his footsteps as head coach, taking over a professional club for the first time. “The club gave me the feeling that they really wanted me as a coach – but unfortunately they didn’t invest more in the squad.” So it happened that Winterthur was unable to absorb the departures after the successful season, ended the autumn season at the bottom and Zaric had to leave in December 2024. “It was a very difficult half-year, but in retrospect it made me better as a coach – even if I would have gladly forgone such an experience.”
Ognjen Zaric with Altach in the European Cup?
Zaric once again used the free time that followed to do internships and also tried to develop his knowledge of the French language. “Today I’m glad that I didn’t immediately accept two or three requests that came in and became concrete.” In January 2026, Zaric took over the vacant coaching position at Bundesliga club SCR Altach: “It was immediately clear to me that I wanted to do that.” At Vorarlberg he had to fill the gap that Fabio Ingolitsch had left behind when he moved to champions Sturm Graz. The start to his time at Altach was more than furious: Altach didn’t lose any of the first six games during his tenure, even won in the ÖFB Cup against Sturm and Salzburg and thus made it to the final for the first time. “Something like that wasn’t to be expected – the goal in the winter was to stay in the league; every match day before the end of the season when we were already in the league was a bonus, they said.” According to Zaric, this success – the cup final – is a big thing not only for the club, but also for the people in the region: “You can also see in the surrounding area how much this means to the people. After so many difficult years, they can now experience this high.” Much more important to Zaric than the latest results is the team’s general development: “It’s important that we’ve made a few steps as a team, including in the game idea. I want to play attacking football, meaning high pressing, lots of ball wins – we’re now at the top of the league there.”
Zaric celebrates the semi-final victory over Salzburg
Zaric is looking forward to the upcoming cup final (LASK, May 1st). “LASK hasn’t won a title in 61 years either. We know what kind of quality we’re facing. In the end, we want to enjoy it and be as well prepared as possible to win the title” – and that would be the first in the club’s history. Although Altach still has a realistic chance of winning the European Cup through the league – with three rounds to go, the Altachers are in eighth place, which would guarantee them at least a place in the Austrian play-offs if they were to lose the cup – staying in the league is still the primary goal: “After the situation last year, it is important to ensure staying in the league. There is no team that has so far made it from the qualifying group into a group phase/league phase of the Conference League, which belongs also to the truth.”
What will happen next season for Altach is clear: “Looking ahead to the coming season makes us confident. Our clear goal remains to stay in the league, but at the same time we want to take the next step as a club and establish ourselves in the midfield in a stable manner in the long term, also with a view to the abolition of the point division.”
Interview by Dorian Schuster
