Martin Hinteregger

Martin Hinteregger (born 7 September 1992) is an Austrian footballer who plays for SGA Sirnitz.

A centre-back renowned for his aerial ability, Hinteregger gained a cult following among fans and was referred to as Hinti.

Hinteregger began his career with SGA Sirnitz before making his breakthrough as part of Red Bull Salzburg.

Hinteregger began playing football shortly before his seventh birthday in 1999 in the youth team of SGA Sirnitz in Albeck, Carinthia in the Feldkirchen District.

There he progressed through various youth teams under the tutelage of his father Franz Hinteregger, who worked as a youth coach at the club.

Hinteregger won several championships at under-10 to under-14 level with the Sirnitz youth teams and finished third at the Carinthian Futsal Indoor Football Championships in 2006 with the under-14 team.

In July 2006, Hinteregger was scouted by cooperation club Red Bull Salzburg.

After 12 youth appearances and two goals in the 2006–07 season, another 19 games and one goal followed in the 2007–08 season, in which he was already accepted as a permanent member of the youth department of Salzburg and was no longer in the squad as a cooperation player.

After having played in a few U17 games, he made his first appearance for the club's U19 team in March 2009, competing in the U19 League.

On 2 May 2009, he scored his first goal for the team in the 26th minute of a 3–2 away defeat against the U19 academy team from Vorarlberg.

During this season, Hinteregger was utilised in a total of eleven U19 games in which he scored two goals.

In the 2009–10 season, the native Carinthian was also an integral part of the left defensive side of the academy team, for which he appeared in 14 games until the end of March 2010 and scored four goals.

After being promoted to the Red Bull Salzburg reserve team competing in the Second League in early 2010, Hinteregger made his professional debut on 23 April 2010 in the 2–0 away win over FC Dornbirn playing the full match.

With his first professional appearance over a full 90 minutes and predominantly good performances in the following games, he increasingly established himself in the second team.

The reason for his first appearance had been defensive all-rounder Harald Pichler being suspended due to a yellow card.

For the 2010–11 season, Hinteregger was a starter in the second team and was also a part of the UEFA Europa League squad of the first team.

Due to an injury to Andreas Ulmer, he was on the substitute's bench for a game against Manchester City.

He scored his first goal for the reserves in the city derby against SV Austria Salzburg

Hinteregger made his first appearances with professionals team of Red Bull Salzburg in the 2010–11 season under head coach Huub Stevens.

He made his debut in the Austrian Bundesliga on 16 October 2010 in a match against Kapfenberger SV.

Five days later, he also made his Europa League debut in a match against Juventus.

In the 2011–12 season, he became an integral part of the first team by new coach Ricardo Moniz.

He mostly appeared as a left-back during the season.

In the Europa League play-offs, he scored the decisive goal in the 1–0 win over Omonia Nicosia, which meant that Salzburg advanced to the group stage after 2–1 away defeat, on the away goals rule.

After being appointed team captain by Moniz at the beginning of the 2012 spring season, he was dropped from the squad three weeks later for disciplinary reasons after being involved in a party in Salzburg after a home defeat against SV Mattersburg.

The season ended with the club winning the domestic double.

After Moniz had resigned in the summer of 2012, Hinteregger became a starting centre-back in the 2012–13 season under new coach Roger Schmidt, and was also sometimes utilised in the defensive midfield.

Red Bull Salzburg were eliminated in the UEFA Champions League qualifiers against F91 Dudelange in the second round, missed out on the league title and were knocked out in the domestic cup against Austrian Regionalliga club FC Pasching.

In the 2013–14 season, Hinteregger became the key player in defence.

In 2014, he won his second Austrian Bundesliga title with the team.

After failing to advance in the Champions League qualification against Fenerbahçe, they advanced in the Europa League to the round of sixteen and eventually lost to FC Basel.

In the 2–1 defeat in the second leg, Hinteregger was suspended because of a yellow card.

After head coach Schmidt left the club in the summer of 2014, Hinteregger remained a regular under his successor Adi Hütter.

In the 2014–15 season, Salzburg was only the third club to win successive national championship and cup titles.

Internationally, the round of sixteen of the Europa League against Spanish side Villarreal was the final destination; previously, they had been knocked out in the play-offs of the Champions League against Swedish club Malmö FF.

In the 2015–16 season, Hinteregger and his team were again knocked out by Malmö in the third qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League.

He played in the German Bundesliga between 2016 and 2022.

In addition, Hinteregger played 25 games for Austrian youth teams and took part in the UEFA Euro 2016 and UEFA Euro 2020 with the senior team, for which he made his debut in 2013.

With Eintracht Frankfurt, where he began playing in 2019, Hinteregger won the UEFA Europa League in 2022.

In June 2022, shortly after winning the Europa League, he retired from professional football at the age of 29.