Chess, ‘Millionaire’ and Champions League: the incredible story of the Sabah coach

Chess is also good for football. Maresca demonstrates this, but also Pulisic, Buongiorno, Dani Olmo, Mkhitaryan, Eze and many others. And he knows it well too Valdas Dambrauskasthe Lithuanian coach who has just led Sabah to the first Champions League qualification in its history and who will present himself at the draw today with one of the most curious profiles among the coaches of the qualified teams.

Dambrauskas is not currently a professional chess player, but has played at a competitive level and has been included in the FIDE circuit. The 49-year-old Lithuanian in fact has an official profile of the International Chess Federation, with 1833 Elo points in standard play, 1864 in rapid and 1777 in blitz, the various cadences with which you play. The ratings are currently inactive and he does not have FIDE titles, but the numbers are enough to place him well beyond the level of a simple enthusiast. But Dambrauskas’ biography reserves an even more particular story, born long before his arrival in the Champions League. And this time one of the most well-known programs on the world scene has something to do with it, a quiz in Italy known as:“Who wants to be a millionaire?”.

The money to leave for England

In 2002, at age 25, Dambrauskas participated in the Lithuanian version of “Who wants to be a millionaire?”, Six zeroes is a million. He won 4.000 litersthe currency then in use in Lithuania, just over a thousand euros. A sum not enormous in absolute terms, but significant in his country (especially at the beginning of the millennium) and enough to make a change in his path and his life.

With that money he moved to England and began investing in his coaching education. Study Sport Science and Coaching alla London Metropolitan Universitywhere he graduated in 2009. The same university, recalling today his journey after qualifying for the Champions League, underlines how winning the quiz allowed him to take the first step towards the United Kingdom. Once a month had passed, however, he had to work to support himself during his studies.

A coach with no past

Dambrauskas’ path was anything but conventional. He didn’t have a career as a professional footballer behind him and access to top-level football was built from scratch. In England he gained experience in the youth sectors of clubs such as Manchester United, Fulham e Brentfordbefore starting to train on his own bench. The debut among the seniors came very far from the spotlight of the Champions League, with the Kingsbury London Tigersin the ninth tier of English football.

From there a journey through much of European football began. Dambrauskas coached in Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Cyprus and Hungary, gradually building a reputation especially in Eastern European leagues. With it Zalgirishe won championships and cups in Lithuania, with the Ludogorets won the Bulgarian championship and withHajduk Spalato the Croatian Cup. Then came the call from Sabah, Azerbaijan.

Sabah, born in 2017 and already in the Champions League

Il Sabah was only founded in 2017. With Dambrauskas on the bench they won the national championship and cup, gaining access to the Champions League qualifiers. The European journey began from the first preliminary round and the Azerbaijani club certainly did not start among the favourites. “When we embarked on this journey we were not considered among the favourites, we were always seen as outsiders,” Dambrauskas told UEFA. “We proved we deserved to be here.”

To get all the way to the league stage, Sabah had to overcome four qualifying rounds. The journey began against the Welsh The New Saintseliminated with a 4-1 aggregate, and continued against the Finns of KuPSbeaten 3-0 between legs. The third round against the Danes was more complicatedAarhus: after the 2-1 defeat in the first leg, Sabah turned everything around at home with a clear 4-0, finishing 5-2 on aggregate. The same script was repeated in the play-offs againstHapoel Beer-Sheva: 2-1 defeat in the first leg and comeback in the return leg, won 5-2 after extra time for a 6-4 aggregate which earned the historic qualification.

Azerbaijan’s Sabah Baku Club has officially qualified for the UEFA Champions League, marking a historic first for the club pic.twitter.com/MWBP04bP9N

— 15 Champions Football (@15Champfootball) August 26, 2026

Sabah, a city with just under 19 thousand inhabitants

And the Sabah house also contributes to making the story special. The club is not actually based in Baku, as it is often indicated, but in Massage therapistin the Absheron district, about twenty kilometers from the Azerbaijani capital. Location mattered 18,967 inhabitants in 2024 and overlooks the lake of the same name. This is where Sabah plays its home games Bank Republic Arenaa stadium with approximately 8,700 seats. With less than 19 thousand inhabitants, Masazir thus enters the small group of the smallest towns to have brought its own team to the top European competition

Chess as a guide

Nine years after its foundation, the Azerbaijani club finds itself among the greats in Europe, somewhat retracing the path taken by Almaty, just a year ago. The first undertaking, however, was already that of competing and taking away the national title from Qarabag, a team much more accustomed to playing on European stages.

And his story starts from the bench where sits a coach who has never been a professional footballer, who began to build his career thanks to a television win and who, even before learning to read a football match, had already learned the right mentality by moving the pieces on a chessboard.