Sabah Boss Dambrauskas Set for Old Trafford Return, 20 Years After Coaching United's Soccer Schools

Valdas Dambrauskas will lead Sabah out at Old Trafford on Thursday for a Champions League clash with Manchester United, a moment that brings his coaching career full circle two decades after he first worked for United's Soccer Schools.

The 49-year-old Lithuanian has guided the small Azerbaijani club all the way from the first qualifying round to Europe's top competition, an unprecedented run for a team based in a town of just 19,000 people. Sabah are the only club to make it through every round of qualifying to reach the group stage this season.

Speaking to BBC Sport, Dambrauskas said the trip to Old Trafford is hard to put into words. "This is beyond my imagination," he said. "To go through that tunnel on to that pitch. I've been many times to Old Trafford with the kids, and now I'm going to come as a coach."

Dambrauskas' path to this point started in an unlikely place: a Lithuanian gameshow. In 2002, he appeared on the local version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and won 4,000 litas, about £725, which was six months' wages for the average person in Lithuania at the time. He used the money to move to London and start building a coaching career.

He admitted the story has taken on a life of its own since Sabah's qualification went viral online. "This is so long ago," he said. "A back-in-the-year story that really was forgotten. And now suddenly everybody is speaking about this." He said he'd rather people focus on what came after the show than the winnings themselves. "Everybody now takes only this part, you know, about the money," he said. "But yes, it is a true story. My idea was somehow I will try to go on these coaching courses to gain the coaching badge, maybe go back one day to Lithuania and start to work as a football coach."

Dambrauskas arrived in London in August 2002 at age 25 on a student visa with limited English. Over the next eight years, he worked toward his coaching badges while juggling several jobs at once to support his family, including stints as a gardener and handyman. "I was a gardener, a handyman, doing newspaper rounds at the beginning, also polishing floors in a pub," he said. "So many jobs. Working in retail, and then as a sports development officer, then a sports development manager. I was doing two, three, sometimes four jobs."

During this period he studied sports science and coaching at London Metropolitan University, volunteered with a community project in Finsbury Park, and worked his way up at London Tigers, eventually managing their first team in non-league football. He became the first Lithuanian to earn a UEFA coaching licence through the London FA.

His big break came in 2004, when Manchester United Soccer Schools hired him to coach on residential courses across the UK and Europe. "That was the best thing that could happen in my life," he said. "I will be forever grateful to John Shiels, the way he gave me this chance, because I didn't have experience. I'd never been in a place with so many great personalities as I got in the Manchester United Soccer Schools." He later worked at Fulham and then Brentford, where he said academy director Ose Aibangee pushed him to improve.

Reflecting on his years in England, Dambrauskas said the country shaped his whole outlook on football. "When I hear this word 'England', it for me sounds like opportunities," he said. "It was really amazing. England gave me all this and I'll forever be grateful."

In 2010, Dambrauskas left England to become assistant coach at Lithuanian champions Ekranas. Four years later he took over at Zalgiris Vilnius, the country's biggest club, where his career took off. He won two league titles, three domestic cups and two Super Cups there, including a domestic treble in 2016.

What followed was a nine-year, seven-country coaching journey. He won the Latvian Cup with RFS, then moved to Croatia with Gorica, before winning a league title, a Super Cup and Europa League qualification with Bulgaria's Ludogorets Razgrad. A return to Croatia with Hajduk Split brought the club its first trophy in a decade, a run he called "absolutely amazing." Spells in Greece, Cyprus and Hungary followed before he joined Sabah in the summer of 2025, his tenth club.

He won the league and cup double in his first season at Sabah, taking his career trophy total to 13 across five countries.

Getting Sabah into the Champions League proved just as dramatic. The club knocked out Welsh side TNS, Finland's KuPS, Denmark's Aarhus and Israel's Hapoel Beer-Sheva across four qualifying rounds. The decisive tie against Hapoel looked lost until Tellur Mutallimov scored in the fourth minute of stoppage time to force extra time. Sabah went on to win 5-2 on the night and 6-4 on aggregate.

"To go to the Champions League is something beyond imagination," Dambrauskas said. "We have never qualified for the Conference League, we have never qualified for the Europa League. We have never passed more than two rounds in a row in one competition, and now suddenly we are here."

Sabah are based in Masazir, a town about 30 miles north of the Azerbaijani capital Baku. The club, nicknamed the Owls, were only founded in 2017 and turn nine years old this week. Their home ground doesn't meet UEFA's stadium requirements, so their matches will instead be played at the Olympic Stadium in Baku.

Alongside the trip to Old Trafford, Sabah will also host Borussia Dortmund, Barcelona and Napoli, and travel to Villarreal and Arsenal in the group stage. Dambrauskas said he's relishing the challenge regardless of the opponent. "It can be a very hard draw, and it can be a Sabah draw," he said. "You dream for this, to play in this competition, to play against those teams. So now is the time to show that you can handle it, to find a way to compete and we will try to do this. We have a good team, we have an ambitious team, we have hungry players who are really keen to show themselves."