Sabah Face Manchester United at Old Trafford in Historic Champions League Tie
Sabah will take on Manchester United at Old Trafford in a landmark Champions League tie, sending Valdas Dambrauskas back to the stadium where he once worked as a youth coach.
Sabah Champions League snapshot
| Item | Detail | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Club | Sabah | Azerbaijani champions from Masazir, population 19,000 |
| Qualification run | Four knockout rounds | First club to reach the main phase from qualifying round one |
| Dambrauskas | 49 years old | Won 13 trophies in five countries |
| 2026 season | League and cup double | His first campaign in charge of Sabah |
The Old Trafford match completes an extraordinary circle for Dambrauskas, who joined Manchester United Soccer Schools in 2004 after moving to England to pursue his coaching qualifications.
The Lithuanian coach first came to London in 2002 with money won on his country’s version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. His 4,000-litas prize, worth roughly six months of average earnings at the time, paid for the move and gave him the chance to begin coaching studies at London Metropolitan University.
He supported himself by taking as many as four jobs at once, including gardening, handyman work, floor polishing and newspaper deliveries. Dambrauskas had already decided at 12 that football management, rather than Lithuania’s more popular basketball culture, would be his route.
“I wanted to find a way onto coaching courses and get the badge,” he said. “England felt like a place with opportunities.”
Dambrauskas later became the first Lithuanian coach to gain a UEFA licence through the London FA. Since leaving England in 2010, he has worked across Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Croatia and Azerbaijan, collecting 13 trophies.
His latest success came immediately at Sabah, where he delivered the Azerbaijani league title and domestic cup in his first season in 2026. The nine-year-old club then made history by surviving four qualifying ties to reach the Champions League’s main stage.
What happens next
After the Manchester trip, Sabah will welcome Borussia Dortmund, Barcelona and Napoli to Baku. Their remaining away fixtures include Arsenal and Villarreal.
“Walking through that tunnel and onto that field is beyond anything I imagined,” Dambrauskas said. “It is now time to prove we are able to compete.”
