Won Rs 90,000 On TV Show, Worked As A Gardener, Today He'll Lead His Team Vs Manchester Utd

News sports football Won Rs 90,000 On TV Show, Worked As A Gardener, Today He'll Lead His Team Vs Manchester Utd

Last Updated:September 10, 2026, 20:57 IST

Winning Rs 90K on a TV quiz helped fund his move to England, where he worked odd jobs before becoming a coach. Now, Valdas Dambrauskas faces Man Utd in the UCL.

Football has a penchant for incredible stories. On Thursday (September 10), one such story will unfold at Old Trafford stadium in Manchester in the UEFA Champions League. But it won’t be about the team in Red, a club in existence since 1878, returning to the competition of the European elite after a short hiatus.

It’ll be about a club from Azerbaijan, Sabah FK, which was only established in 2017. And more importantly, it’s about Valdas Dambrauskas, its head coach.

Dambrauskas has never played professional football. Born in 1977 in the small northern Lithuanian town of Pakruojis, he saw his father pass away when he was 11 and studied philosophy, social sciences, and civil engineering before finding his true love in football.

In 2002, at age 25, he appeared on Lithuania’s version of Kaun Banega Crorepati (Taip. Ne. era / Kas laimės milijoną?) and won 4,000 Lithuanian litas, about Rs. 90,000 at the time, and used the amount to finance moving to England with his partner to enroll in a football coaching course at the Metropolitan University,

But moving there wasn’t enough. To survive, he delivered newspapers, worked as a gardener, floor polisher, kindergarten assistant, and handyman for almost a decade.

His break came when John Shiels, then CEO of the Manchester United Foundation, hired him to coach at Manchester United Soccer Schools after noticing his drive. He would soon work in the academies of Fulham and Brentford, all with broken English.

After facing difficulties in England because of his lack of football background and because he was a foreigner, he returned to Lithuania in late 2010 and became an assistant coach.

In 2014, he got his first head coach job at Žalgiris Vilnius, where he swept every domestic honor, including a 2016 quadruple, before claiming the 2019 Latvian Cup with FK RFS. His Balkan ventures brought rapid success: transforming Croatia’s HNK Gorica, capturing the 2021 Bulgarian league with Ludogorets Razgrad, and securing Hajduk Split’s first trophy in nine years via the 2022 Croatian Cup.

Following spells at OFI Crete, Omonia Nicosia, and Diósgyőr, he engineered a historic Champions League group-stage qualification with Sabah FK, and will now go toe-to-toe with football’s elite.

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