Oleg gets top job

Oleg (right) and VP Tommy Lim

Ukrainian-born coach Oleg Starynskyi has today signed a contract for the forthcoming season as the Head Coach of Phnom Penh Crown. He replaces Sam Schweingruber, who guided the club to two Cambodian League Championships, and who steps up to the role of Technical Director at RSN Stadium.
Starynskyi (30) joined Crown in February 2016 as an Academy coach after spending the last 3 and a half years in Malaysia including six months as the assistant coach of the Malaysian U-17 national team. He was born in Bila Tserkva, near the Ukraine capital of Kiev, and played youth football for FC Arsenal-Kyiv before spending five years learning the art of film directing at the Kyiv International University. That's where he began coaching and worked for the Kyiv regional federation and as a youth coach with FC Arsenal-Kyiv, before taking up a coaching post with the Goal Academy in Malaysia for three years. He's a UEFA B-license coach, with a Coerver coaching diploma.
Starynskyi coached the Crown Academy to the Smart RSN U-19 Youth Championship in June, supported Sam Schweingruber as an assistant coach of the first-team for much of last season, and did the same for the Cambodia U-19 national team in the recent AFF U-19 Youth Championships in Vietnam. Twenty-two of his U-19 Academy squad have been promoted to the Crown 1st-team this season.
Commenting on his appointment (pictured with Crown Vice-President Tommy Lim), he said: “This is an unexpected and great chance for me and this season will be a season of opportunity for everyone: starting with me as a coach. The club has given me the responsibility to lead the team and I really appreciate this. It will be a big responsibility on my shoulders, as it will for the boys who are newly-promoted to the 1st-Team. It’s a huge opportunity for them, they wouldn’t get this chance at any other club around the world, so I want them to grab it and show their passion and commitment, hard work and attitude.
I am committed to the club and the team, I try to implement attractive football, so we need to adjust our mentality to be more aggressive and take control of games. It won’t be an easy task, I don’t want to talk about winning trophies, we need to be realistic and try our very best in every game. Our team will be young so they need to take responsibility and adapt their mentality. We’ve had one month of pre-season and we will aim to be ready when we go to China and then the MCL and AFC Cup. We need to improve in all areas, especially our decision-making and I need some experienced foreign players in specific positions to help guide our younger players.”