How a quiz prize helped shape Valdas Dambrauskas’s coaching path
The Sabah coach says his 2002 game-show winnings helped cover university costs and the move to England, before his career took him across Europe.
Sabah coach Valdas Dambrauskas says winning Lithuania’s version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? in 2002 helped make his later coaching studies in England possible.
In an interview with UEFA conducted on 18 October 2026, Dambrauskas explained that the prize was not a dedicated coaching fund: it first helped with tuition and later contributed to travel, an English course and accommodation.
A prize with practical uses
Dambrauskas, then 25, won 4,000 Lithuanian litas on the television quiz Šeši nuliai – milijonas. He told UEFA that the sum was worth a little over €1,000 at the time and represented about ten months of pay at his monthly salary.
He was studying philosophy and social sciences part time at Šiauliai University. According to his account, the prize helped cover tuition costs; when an opportunity to go to England arose, some of the money also went towards the expenses of getting there and staying for a course.
From playing to coaching
Dambrauskas had played lower-league football while holding other jobs. After studying coaching at London Metropolitan University, he built experience in England and later coached Lithuania’s youth teams.
His managerial career has included clubs in Lithuania, Latvia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus and Hungary. He took charge of Azerbaijan’s Sabah in 2025 and led the club to a domestic double. Sabah subsequently reached the Champions League league phase.
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The quiz victory was one step in Dambrauskas’s route into coaching, rather than the complete explanation for it, as he stressed in his interview with UEFA.
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Sources
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UEFA Champions League
Official source · 02/11/2026 07:00
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Preparing the player…
