Valdas Dambrauskas, head coach of Azerbaijani champions Sabah, will lead his side into their Champions League debut against Manchester United at Old Trafford on Thursday night, capping an extraordinary journey from a Lithuanian office job to Europe's top club competition. His path to coaching began not on a football pitch but on a television quiz show, and it later wound through years of manual labour in London, illustrating an unusually unconventional route into elite management that stands in stark contrast to the well-trodden academy pathways of most top-level coaches.

In 2002, Dambrauskas won around £725 on the Lithuanian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, money that helped fund his and his girlfriend's move to north London in pursuit of his ambition to become a coach, inspired by seeing the Premier League's growing popularity during a work trip to Norway. He spent eight years in London doing jobs including pub work in Muswell Hill, newspaper delivery, gardening and nursery care while studying sports science and coaching at London Metropolitan University, before landing his first coaching role with children in Finsbury Park and later joining Manchester United Soccer Schools under the mentorship of foundation CEO John Shiels. Sabah, the club he now manages, were only founded in 2017 and reached the Champions League after a dramatic playoff victory over Hapoel Be'er Sheva.