The next goal is to settle down, but I haven’t decided exactly where yet, said Hinteregger on the hike up the Hochrindl. He will also continue to be drawn to Frankfurt, as he owns a restaurant there. Together with ex-successful ski jumper Thomas Morgenstern, he founded a helicopter company in Carinthia. In the future, they want to expand the current sightseeing flight service to include rescue and load transport, in order to be able to help in the event of a disaster, as was the case recently with the floods. Hobby hunter Hinteregger wants to complete his training as a commercial pilot in 2023. A small or large appearance in the “Bergdoktor” would be fun for the big fan of the series. He would like to play a paramedic, or “just be there” when a party is filmed.
Hinteregger recalled that retiring as a professional footballer was a process that took months and began last fall when he was injured. That was when the pressure was off him. “That was a different attitude towards life for me. That’s when I started thinking that it would be nice not to be a professional footballer anymore.” Hinteregger polarized because of his lifestyle and his statements, but enjoyed great popularity in Frankfurt. “All of Frankfurt was behind me,” emphasized the 67-time ÖFB team player. It’s cool to be the crowd’s favourite, but that increases the pressure to perform.
Much more than sporting success (“I’ve never thought about that”) is human, personal success. “It is often the hardest thing for anyone to be who you want. Being happy is the more important success. Happiness is when you have a lot of people around you who you trust.” He has a huge family in which everyone gets along, grandma (“That’s why I have a few more kilos. There’s always something on the stove”) would hold everything together, that’s success.
His heart would soar when big children’s eyes looked up at him. “It shows that you stayed down to earth, you stayed human.” He was able to experience that again at the Hinti Cup he organized. In the run-up to this, he had had trouble explaining his business relationship with a local politician associated with the extreme right. Hinteregger separated. “I strongly condemn right-wing, intolerant and inhuman ideas. Anyone who knows me knows that,” he said at the time.
Hinteregger is known for wearing his heart on his sleeve. At the beginning of the season he often said to himself that he would only answer questions politically, saying what everyone was saying and actually not saying anything. “Then I stand there and can’t lie, I have to say what I think, what my opinion is. … That’s why I made statements that were extremely taken up by the media, which didn’t go down too well. I say often things that everyone thinks anyway, that made me popular in that direction,” he said on Ö3. He pointed out that the media and journalists should be really happy if there were players who gave the right answers.
He was a generation that had been thrown in at the deep end a bit. “The boys now have extreme media training. The players know exactly what to say to every question, nothing exciting comes out of it anymore. From the age of 15 onwards they are bred to be football professionals. There will no longer be any real types.” If something was said, it would immediately be seen as a scandal. Media and athletes should work together more again, they don’t mean any harm to each other. “Then it will be more exciting for everyone.”
Source: Nachrichten
