Sabah manager Valdas Dambrauskas will coach in the Champions League this season after using his winnings from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? to begin a career in football.
The Lithuanian appeared on his country’s version of the television quiz show in 2002, when he was a 25-year-old student with no professional playing career and an ambition to become a coach.
Dambrauskas did not win the million.
He left with 4,000 Lithuanian litas, reportedly worth approximately £2,500 in today’s money, and used the prize to move to England with his girlfriend. After paying for flights and accommodation, the couple were understood to have enough money remaining for around one month.
It was sufficient.
Dambrauskas learned English, completed his coaching qualifications and studied Sports Science and Coaching at London Metropolitan University. He gained experience within the youth systems of Fulham, Brentford and Manchester United before beginning his senior managerial career with ninth-tier Kingsbury London Tigers.
His subsequent career took him through Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Cyprus and Hungary before he became Sabah manager in 2025.
Dambrauskas then led the Azerbaijani club, founded only in 2017, to the first league title in its history as part of a domestic double.
Sabah have now reached the Champions League league phase after entering in the opening qualifying round and surviving four separate ties. They defeated The New Saints, KuPS and Aarhus before completing a 6-4 aggregate victory over Hapoel Beer-Sheva in the play-offs.
Their decisive second leg required a stoppage-time equaliser, extra time, two opposition red cards and a 5-2 victory, providing a suitably straightforward conclusion to a 24-year journey that began on a television game show.
Dambrauskas has acknowledged that the winnings helped create the opportunity to move to England, although he believes he would eventually have found another route into coaching.
Football’s conventional pathway usually involves a professional playing career, an elite academy or a useful contact inside the game. Dambrauskas began his by correctly answering enough multiple-choice questions to afford several weeks in London.
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? did not make Valdas Dambrauskas a millionaire.
It sent him to the Champions League instead.
