Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? winner Valdas Dambrauskas reaches Champions League

August 28, 2026 • 0 • min read

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Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Winner Valdas Dambrauskas reaches Champions League

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Valdas Dambrauskas used his 2002 quiz winnings to pursue coaching in England.
The former student and non-professional player has led Sabah FK into the Champions League.
Sabah completed a remarkable comeback against Hapoel Beer-Sheva to reach the league phase.

Valdas Dambrauskas has gone from winning on a quiz show to coaching in the Champions League - without ever playing professional football.

The 49-year-old Lithuanian has completed one of football's more remarkable journeys after guiding Azerbaijani club Sabah FK into the league phase of Europe's elite competition.

A quiz-show win changed everything

His story began more than two decades ago, when Dambrauskas was still a student with an ambition to become a football coach.

In 2002, he appeared on Lithuania's version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and walked away with 4,000 Lithuanian litas, worth around £2,500 in today's money.

Shortly afterwards, he moved to England with his girlfriend to study Sports Science and Coaching at London Metropolitan University.

It was a huge risk.

Dambrauskas had limited English and spent much of his winnings on flights and accommodation. He had no professional playing career to fall back on, either.

Instead, he worked in retail whilst completing his coaching qualifications and gradually building experience.

His journey was methodical.

First came learning English. Then his Level 1 and Level 2 coaching qualifications, followed by youth coaching experience and work within professional academy environments.

He also gained experience with Fulham and Brentford, whilst continuing his studies and attending coaching courses and conferences whenever possible.

By 2009, he had graduated and returned to Lithuania, where he took charge of the country's under-17 side.

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From Lithuanian football to the Champions League

Dambrauskas gradually established himself as a senior coach, taking charge of Lithuanian clubs including Ekranas and Zalgiris before moving abroad.

His career subsequently took him to Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Cyprus and Hungary.

He enjoyed notable success with Bulgarian side Ludogorets and Croatian giants Hajduk Split, adding domestic trophies to a coaching career that had begun with a quiz-show jackpot.

But his biggest achievement may have arrived in Azerbaijan.

Dambrauskas took over at Sabah last summer and quickly made an impact, guiding the club to its first league title and a domestic double.

Sabah's extraordinary Champions League comeback

Sabah had to navigate all four qualifying rounds to reach the Champions League league phase.

They overcame Welsh champions The New Saints, Finland's KuPS and Danish side Aarhus before facing Hapoel Beer-Sheva in the play-offs.

The final hurdle looked as though it might prove too much.

Sabah lost the first leg 2-1 and then found themselves 2-1 down on the night in the return fixture, leaving them two goals behind on aggregate with only around 20 minutes remaining.

Then everything changed.

Umarali Rakhmonaliev pulled one back before Tellur Mutallimov struck with a dramatic volley in the closing seconds of stoppage time to level the tie and force extra time.

Hapoel's night then unravelled.

Djibril Diop was sent off, reducing the visitors to 10 men, before further goals from Orphé Mbina and Joy-Lance Mickels completed a stunning 5-2 victory for Sabah.

Eliel Peretz was also shown a red card late on as Hapoel finished the match with nine men.

Sabah won 6-4 on aggregate and secured a place in the Champions League league phase.

They are the only club from the 28 teams that entered in the first qualifying round to survive all four rounds and reach the league phase.

'Sabah is the best team I've coached'

For Dambrauskas, the achievement represents the culmination of a journey that began with a television quiz more than 20 years ago.

Speaking to UEFA after the victory, the Lithuanian was understandably emotional.

It's a great night. I thank the fans.

The players played great. Sabah is the best team I've coached in my career.

We've qualified for the main stage of the best tournament in the world. Today, I'm the happiest head coach in the world.

The scale of the achievement is difficult to overstate.

A man who had never played professional football used a modest quiz-show prize to finance a move to England, learned the language, worked his way through coaching qualifications, took jobs wherever he could find them and slowly climbed the football pyramid.

Now he could find himself preparing to face some of the biggest clubs in world football.

Real Madrid and Bayern Munich could be next

Dambrauskas is already looking forward to testing his team against Europe's elite.

First of all, to test ourselves and compete against the best.

It is not only excitement but also a big responsibility and an opportunity. It is very important for the club's growth. We can only grow individually and as a team. We want to use this opportunity.

For Dambrauskas, it is the latest - and perhaps most extraordinary - chapter in a football story that began with 4,000 Lithuanian litas and an unlikely dream.

The next time he walks into a Champions League stadium, he will do so not as a former quiz-show contestant chasing an ambition, but as the coach who turned that gamble into reality.