Valdas Dambrauskas completes unlikely journey to Champions League

Valdas Dambrauskas will lead Sabah into a Champions League match at Manchester United on Thursday, completing an unlikely return to the place where his coaching career began. The Lithuanian worked for Manchester United Soccer Schools early in his career and is now taking the Azerbaijani champions to Old Trafford.

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BBC Sport reported that Dambrauskas moved to London in 2002, aged 25, on a student visa and with limited English. That move followed an appearance on Lithuania's version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, where he won 4,000 litas, about £725 at the time. The sum represented roughly six months of average wages in Lithuania, and he used it to pursue coaching qualifications.

His development in England involved coaching community projects and non-league football while taking several jobs to support his family. Dambrauskas enrolled in sports science and coaching at London Metropolitan University in 2004, volunteered with the Access to Sports Project and progressed from volunteer to first-team manager at London Tigers. He also worked with Fulham and Brentford after joining Manchester United Soccer Schools.

Dambrauskas returned to Lithuania at the end of 2010 to join Ekranas as an assistant and reserve-team coach. He later won two league titles, three Lithuanian Cups and two Super Cups with Zalgiris Vilnius. Further appointments took him through Latvia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus and Hungary before Sabah hired him in the summer of 2025.

In his first season with Sabah, Dambrauskas delivered a domestic league and cup double, including the club's first Azerbaijani title. BBC Sport said those successes raised his career total to 13 trophies in five countries. Sabah then became the only club to reach this season's Champions League league phase after starting in the first qualifying round.

The decisive play-off against Hapoel Beer-Sheva required a stoppage-time goal from Tellur Mutallimov to force extra time before Sabah won 5-2 on the night and 6-4 on aggregate. After overcoming four qualifying rounds, the club now faces a schedule that includes Manchester United, Arsenal, Borussia Dortmund, Barcelona and Napoli. For Dambrauskas, Thursday's visit brings a two-decade coaching journey back to one of its starting points.