Cyrill Schmidiger (born 22 June 1978) is a

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internation ...

former

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who played in the 1990s and 2000s. He played mainly in the position as

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

Football career

Schmidiger played his youth football with local amateur club

SV Muttenz Sportverein Muttenz, is a football club from Muttenz, Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal ...

and advanced to their first team during the summer 1995 and played one season in the 2nd League, the fourth tier of Swiss football. Schmidiger joined

FC Basel Fussball Club Basel 1893, widely known as FC Basel, FCB, or just Basel, is a Swiss football club based in Basel, in the Canton of Basel-Stadt. Formed in 1893, the club has been Swiss national champions 20 times, Swiss Cup winners 13 times, and ...

's youth system and first team before their

1996–97 FC Basel season The 1996–97 FC Basel, Fussball Club Basel 1893 season was their 104th season since the club's foundation. Peter Epting retired from the chairmanship and René C. Jäggi became the club's new chairman following the annual general meeting, AGM whi ...

, signing a two-year professional contract, under head-coach

Karl Engel Karl (Rudolf) Engel (Birsfelden, 1 June 1923 - Clarens, Switzerland, Chernex, 2 September 2006) was a Switzerland, Swiss pianist. In 1952 Engel was awarded the second prize at the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition, Queen Elisabeth competition. ...

. He played mainly with the youth or reserve team, but after playing in three test games Schmidiger played his domestic league debut for the club in the home game in the

St. Jakob Stadium The St. Jakob Stadium was a football stadium in Basel, Switzerland and the former home of Swiss club FC Basel. It was built in view of the 1954 FIFA World Cup, and as well as serving as a club stadium, it hosted several important matches, inc ...

on 31 May 1997 as Basel won 3–2 against

Aarau Aarau (, ) is a List of towns in Switzerland, town, a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality, and the capital of the northern Swiss Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Aargau. The List of towns in Switzerland, town is also the capital of the dis ...

. He stayed with the club for one more season, but during this time he was only used as a substitute and therefore he returned to his club of origin. During his time with the club Schmidiger played a total of 16 games for Basel without scoring a goal. Eight of these games were in the Nationalliga A and eight were friendly games. After playing two more years in the first team with

, who had in the meantime had been promoted to the 1st League, Schmidiger was hired by

FC Solothurn FC Solothurn is a Swiss football club based in Solothurn. The club has played in Nationalliga B (2nd level), and currently plays at 1. Liga (Group 2) (3rd level). History From season 1925–26 to 1930–31, when a new system got introduced, ...

, who at that time played in the Nationalliga B. Schmidiger played 21 league games, scoring one goal, for Solothurn. He then transferred to division rivals FC Concordia Basel and played as semi-professional. He played two seasons for Concordia but did not obtain much playing time and so he retired from professional career and again returned to his club of origin, who in the meantime had suffered relegation to the fourth tier. Two years later, at the end of the 2004–05 season, Schmidiger achieved promotion with Muttenz. He played with their first team at least two more seasons.

Private life

Schmidiger obtained his vocational diploma at the commercial school of business in Liestal in 1997. In 1999 he joined the

UBS UBS Group AG is a multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland. Co-headquartered in the cities of Zürich and Basel, it maintains a presence in all major financial centres ...

and worked as customer advisor and became team leader. After his professional football career, he visited a higher technical school for economics for his further education. Since 2014 he is branch manager.

References

Sources

* Die ersten 125 Jahre. Publisher: Josef Zindel im Friedrich Reinhardt Verlag, Basel.
Verein "Basler Fussballarchiv" Homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schmidiger, Cyrill SV Muttenz players FC Basel players FC Solothurn players FC Concordia Basel players Swiss men's footballers Men's association football midfielders Swiss Super League players Swiss Challenge League players 1978 births Living people