Sabah makes history under coach whose journey began with quiz show ARTICLE BY EURONEWS

A quiz-show prize won by Valdas Dambrauskas, years of hard work and a data-driven recruitment strategy have helped Azerbaijan's Sabah FC achieve one of the most remarkable feats in its short history: qualification for the UEFA Champions League main round, Euronews reports.

The report said Dambrauskas became the first Baltic coach to reach the Champions League main round, leading a club that was founded just nine years ago to matches against Arsenal, Manchester United and Barcelona.

In an interview with Euronews, however, he said the “story about the TV quiz is a little overrated."

In 2002, Dambrauskas won prize money on the Lithuanian television show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" and used it to move to England and fund his UEFA coaching badges.

He had no professional football background. To finance his courses, he worked as a babysitter, salesman and newspaper delivery man before eventually joining the youth academies of Fulham, Brentford and Manchester United. Sabah, based in Baku, Azerbaijan, is now his 10th club.

"Sometimes it was difficult. I had to work hard, and sometimes to believe when myself and those around me were doubting," Dambrauskas recalled. "I take this achievement as a milestone and believe that journey is more important. There are other dreams ahead and I really don't want to stop."

Sabah defeated Hapoel Beer Sheva 5-2 last Tuesday to secure a 6-4 aggregate victory and reach the Champions League main round, guaranteeing eight matches against some of Europe's biggest clubs.

Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund, Napoli and Slavia Prague will travel to Baku, while Dambrauskas and his squad will face Arsenal and Manchester United in England, Villarreal in Spain and Viking in Norway.

Dambrauskas, however, said the club must not lose sight of its domestic responsibilities.

"Everyone is speaking about the Champions League, but the Azerbaijan championship is what allows you to play there. It is very important we keep the focus and prepare for every game that we are going to play," he noted. "We have a fantastic international environment where a lot of times we select eleven different nationalities in the starting line-up. In this kind of environment the main word we base our philosophy on is respect."

"It is time to focus"

Founded in 2017, Sabah won the Azerbaijan Cup in the 2024-25 season and claimed the Azerbaijan Premier League title the following year, ending Qarabağ's long-standing domestic dominance.

For Sabah right-back and right-winger Tellur Mutallimov, facing Europe's elite is less about excitement than responsibility.

"Playing against clubs of this stature gives me a greater sense of responsibility and extra motivation rather than excitement," Mutallimov told Euronews. "The celebrations are now behind us. It is time to focus all our attention on the important and difficult matches ahead."

Mutallimov also praised Sabah's supporters, including Azerbaijani fans living abroad who followed the team during its qualifying campaign.

"Even when we played far away from home in Denmark, England, Finland and Romania, we were not alone. We are grateful to our compatriots living abroad, who came to the stadiums and supported us during those matches," he stressed.

Dambrauskas is assisted by 37-year-old Italian coach Valerio Zuddas, who has worked in 10 countries and oversees the team's defensive organisation and analysis of European opponents.

"The biggest satisfaction for Valdas as head coach and for us as coaching staff is that we can clearly see how the players are into our team principles and how they believe in them," Zuddas told Euronews.

"Sometimes they find solutions by themselves inside our structure, their level of understanding of the game allows us to propose always different strategies and variations that help us to be more and more competitive," he added.

"Dreaming differently about football"

Club president Magsud Adigozalov stated that Sabah's rise was built on analytics and smart recruitment rather than financial power.

"We could not compete financially with many established European clubs, so we had to find our own competitive advantages," he emphasised.

"We were inspired by the Moneyball philosophy, which demonstrated that intelligent use of data and recruitment can help a club compete far beyond what its financial size might suggest," Adigozalov explained.

He nevertheless underscored that people remain at the heart of the club's approach.

"Footballers are people before they are assets or statistics. We try to provide players with excellent training and living conditions and treat them and their families with respect," he said.

Sabah's squad is estimated to have a total market value of around €16.65 million, compared with approximately €1.1 billion for Barcelona and €900 million for Manchester United.

Napoli centre-back Benoît Badiashile, who recently joined from Chelsea, is valued at roughly the same amount as Sabah's entire squad.

According to Adigozalov, the club's Champions League qualification is the visible result of a much longer process. "The Champions League is the result everyone can see today. What makes us especially proud is the system, the culture and the work behind it that people did not see for nine years."

Reaching the Champions League main round will bring Sabah millions of euros in direct UEFA distributions, along with potential broadcasting revenue and new sponsorship opportunities.

For Adigozalov, however, the achievement could have an impact far beyond the club's finances.

"A young boy or girl sitting in the stadium and watching Barcelona or Borussia Dortmund play against Sabah may start dreaming differently about football," he added. "If this achievement brings more children into football, more families into stadiums and creates greater belief in Azerbaijani football, then its impact will be much bigger than Sabah itself."

By Bakhtiyar Abbasov