From game show to Champions League: The remarkable rise of Valdas Dambrauskas

In 2002, then 25-year-old student Dambrauskas appeared on the Lithuanian version of the TV show 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'. He was never a professional footballer. He skipped that career, which is common for future coaches, and immediately set his sights on becoming a coach.

Dambrauskas won four thousand litas, the currency of the Baltic state at the time. Adjusted for inflation, that amount would be roughly €3,000 today. He used the prize money to travel to England, where he continued to learn the coaching craft.

He attended several courses, studied Sports Science and Coaching at London Metropolitan University, and then gained experience at many renowned academies. He worked at Manchester United, Fulham, and Brentford. He later moved up through Lithuania’s youth national teams before stepping into professional senior football in 2013.

Among the teams he has managed, Hajduk Split and Ludogorets Razgrad stand out. Last year, however, he took over the Azerbaijani side Sabah, with whom he achieved the extraordinary. He's now led the Baku side into the main stage of the Champions League for the first time in the club’s history, having to go through all four qualifying rounds.

This year, Sabah are also the only team out of 28 participants in the first Champions League qualifying round to make it all the way to the league phase. All the others have been eliminated. The team, based near Azerbaijan’s capital, pulled off a sensational 5-2 home win after extra time in the final qualifying round, overturning an initial away defeat to Hapoel Beer Sheva.

Coach Dambrauskas has gone from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? to the millionaire’s competition. There, alongside Europe’s giants, his and Sabah's story could go to even greater heights.

Follow the rest of Champions League qualifying here!