Sam Schweingruber

Playing career

In his playing days, Schweingruber played at Swiss third-division sides Munsterlingen, Oberglatt, and Pfyn. before travelling to Cambodia where he played for the Mild Seven team. For a monthly salary, they paid him 30 US dollars and a cigarette packet. Later, he became their head coach.

Coaching

Taking an interest in coaching at age 16, he coached the FC Winterthur academy before coaching the Royal Cambodian Navy team and Khmer Empire. Much later, in October 2012, he became coach of Phnom Penh Crown.

Despite Sam Schweingruber committing himself to fight against corruption, Phnom Penh Crown had been torn asunder after unfalsified voice recordings showed that seven players and four staff were purportedly involved in perpetrating a match manipulation scandal which did not adhere to the rules. Since this happened, Phnom Penh Crown were not allowed to take part in the 2017 AFC Cup. Later, the club were exonerated of match-fixing as Sam Schweingruber and the club were trying to fight it by launching an investigation to uncover those who were trying to alter the results. Two days after winning the 2015 Cambodian League with Phnom Penh Crown, Schweingruber was involved in a serious motorcycle crash and was rushed to hospital where he remained for several days in a perilous condition. Shortly after, his condition worsened and he was flown to Bangkok. There, he drifted in and out of a coma-like state which further exacerbated the situation. Thankfully for him, he never retrogressed to an earlier point of his recovery so his condition later started to improve- allowing him to be sent back home to Switzerland to enter a recovery facility in mid-January 2016. It was an experience which made him re-examine his whole life. After he finally recovered, the coach made the ultimate decision to return to Cambodia where his five-year-old son lived, a decision his family were averse to. His president informed him that if he returned 'there would be a 20 percent chance he would be killed' but he did anyway.

Oriol Mohedano was coach of Phnom Penh Crown in the period the Swiss manager was hospitalized.

The former player is among one of Phnom Penh Crown's most successful coaches, having won back-to-back Cambodian League titles in 2015.

FIFA

Aside from coaching, Schweingruber is a FIFA Grassroots Development Officer who instructed a FIFA Grassroots Course in the Philippines in 2015.

Organizations

Way back in 2006, Schweingruber's helmet was stolen by a youth who was under the influence of drugs so Schweingruber endeavoured to establish an academy which would help Cambodian youth development. It was named the SALT Academy. This academy teaches football and indispensable life skills to children from impecunious families in rural Cambodia.

The SALT Academy also contains a group called the Mighty Girls which specializes in teaching girls football.

• Cambodian League(2): 2014, 2015