[1] In 1978, at the age of 17, he became goalkeeper number 1 for SC Zug in the 1st League, at that time the third tier of Swiss football.
[2] During the pre-season to the 1984–85 Nationalliga A, Brügger moved to the established NLA club FC Wettingen, where he was the regular goalkeeper for three years - until Jörg Stiel ousted him at the end of the 1986–87 season.
The following season Brügger signed for Luzern, where he was a substitute for regular goalie Roger Tschudin and only came to one first team appearance in the league.
[4] Brügger was part of the St. Gallen team with Iván Zamorano and Hugo Eduardo Rubio that stormed the unofficial title of "winter champion" in the first stage of the 1989–90 Nationalliga A season.
Following this Brügger could not find a new club and was still searching in vain during the winter break of 1990–91 and then he ended his professional career and joined FC Ascona.
At the age of 20, the trained plumber fell eleven meters from the scaffolding and landed on a pallet with bricks.
He then played for a short time for FC Minusio until he crashed into a goal post during an intervention and broke his nose - again.
Since 2015 he has been living in Davos and works for the general contractor Baulink as «Mädchen für alles» as he calls it.