From game show to Champions League - Sabah coach tells his incredible story

What the report says

BBC Sport Football reports that Lithuanian coach Valdas Dambrauskas is set to lead Azerbaijani side Sabah at Old Trafford in the Champions League, with a further group match away to Arsenal also mentioned in the article. The 49-year-old says returning to England, where he first built his coaching career, feels like a full-circle moment after two decades in football.

The piece traces Dambrauskas’s unusual route to the top. After appearing on the Lithuanian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, he used his winnings to move to London in 2002 and begin coaching courses. BBC Sport says he worked with community projects, non-league teams and academy programmes while also taking a series of casual jobs to support his family, before earning opportunities with Manchester United Soccer Schools, Fulham and Brentford.

His career later took him back to Lithuania and then across Europe, including spells in Latvia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus and Hungary. BBC Sport says he has won 13 trophies across five countries, including league and cup success with Zalgiris Vilnius, Ludogorets Razgrad and Sabah. Sabah reached the Champions League by winning four qualifying rounds, becoming the only club to progress from the first qualifying stage, and a late equaliser in the final tie against Hapoel Beer-Sheva proved decisive.

The article presents Sabah’s qualification as a major breakthrough for both the club and Dambrauskas, whose story links English football, hard-won coaching experience and a long nomadic career in Europe.