Sabah FC will become the youngest-ever team in UEFA Champions League history when they travel to Old Trafford to face European giants Manchester United on Thursday night.
Situated in Masazir, Azerbaijan, Sabah were formed by entrepreneur Yagub Huseynov in September 2017, entering the Azerbaijani second division in just their first season as a professional club.
While their extraordinary rise from the second-flight to the UEFA Champions League in just nine years would imply an uncomplicated journey, it's been far from it for Sabah. The club failed to amount any more than 29 points in their first three seasons in the Azerbaijan Premier League, and any minor progress made was significantly halted by the constant changes in the dugout.
Sabah eventually showed patience in Russian head coach Murad Musayev, who -- after an average first season -- led the club to their second-highest finish in 2022/23, finishing second in the top-flight on 81 points, nine points behind league winners Qarabag.
After a brief spell of stability -- most notably in the dugout -- Musayev resigned in February 2024 after overseeing the club's most successful period, and his successor Krunoslav Rendulic was replaced by Vyasili Berezutski just nine months after being appointed.
After seven permanent managerial changes and an already remarkable journey, Valdas Dambrauskas was appointed.
To describe his impact as instrumental would be downplaying it. To better grasp his influence in Masazir, simply look at Sabah's run of fixtures until the end of January 2027, with colossal contests against European giants Manchester United, Arsenal and Borussia Dortmund on the horizon.
The unlikeliest of promotions
Sabah welcomed Bine FK in their first-ever league contest as a professional side, emerging victorious as they won 1-0.
From 5-0 wins to 4-0 defeats, the start to the 2017/18 Azerbaijan First Division campaign was a sign that it wasn't going to be easy to escape the second tier. Not without a stroke of luck, anyway...
Arif Asadov -- who had previously managed domestic giants Qarabag and has since taken up the role of assistant manager for the Azerbaijan national team -- oversaw a steady first season with The Owls, guiding the club to a fifth-placed finish with 11 wins, seven draws and nine losses.
It wasn't enough to see the club make the jump to the Azerbaijan Premier League in the traditional performance-based way, but a remarkable twist saw them earn the unlikeliest of promotions.
The Football Federation of Azerbaijan stress that all clubs must satisfy specific financial, administrative, and infrastructural club licensing criteria to be promoted to the top-flight, something that the top four in the 2017/18 Azerbaijan First Division -- Khazar Baku, Qaradağ Lökbatan, Shuvalan, and MOIK Baku -- failed to meet.
This saw fifth-placed Sabah, who passed the administrative and financial review to secure their license, make the jump to the leading division in just their first season as a football club.
Breaking up the Qarabag dynasty
The Azerbaijan Premier League was founded in 1992, and -- at least in the early years -- success was relatively split in the top-flight, with eight different teams winning the division in 20 seasons between 1992 and 2013.
After years of fierce competition at the top end of the table, the Qarabag dynasty commenced at the start of the 2013/14 campaign.
While long-term manager Gurban Gurbanov had been at the club since 2008, it was their 2013/14 championship success that triggered a historic run where Qarabag clinched 11 from a possible 12 league titles.
Qarabag's dominance after amazingly losing out to Neftçi Baku in 2020/21 had sparked skepticism as to whether they would ever be topped in Azerbaijan, but Sabah had other ideas in the 2025/26 campaign.
It all started at the end of the 2024/25 season. While Sabah had endured a relatively underwhelming spell in the league, finishing fifth on 48 points, they defeated league winners Qarabag 3-2 in the Azerbaijan Cup final to earn their first piece of silverware.
It was a monumental moment for Sabah, but not one that marked them overtaking Qarabag. In reflection, however, there are signs since that suggest the 12-time league winners were inadvertently handing over the baton to the new kids on the block.
In 2025/26, Sabah enjoyed arguably one of the greatest seasons in recent Azerbaijan Premier League times. After a 1-0 defeat to İmişli in the second game of the season, the club went on a 28-game unbeaten run in the top division - winning 22 times during that period.
They secured the league title with four games left to play and added to their success when winning the Azerbaijan Cup for a second successive season in May, overcoming Qarabag in the semi-finals before defeating Zira in the final.
In winning the domestic double, they dealt Qarabag just their second trophyless season since 2013.
The dynasty was officially broken.
UEFA Champions League qualification
Less than two months after celebrating a seismic domestic double, Sabah returned to action in the form of the UEFA Champions League qualifiers.
They were eliminated in the third round of qualifying in both the 2023/24 Conference League and 2024/25 Europa League campaigns, and so emerging through four two-legged ties to qualify for Europe's superior competition seemed a tall order.
The New Saints were up first, and Sabah had few problems overcoming the Welsh outfit , winning 2-0 at the Bank Respublika Arena before clinching a 2-1 victory away from home to take the score to 4-1 on aggregate.
Sabah had the initial home advantage when welcoming KuPS to Azerbaijan in July, and Veljko Simić's well-taken effort saw them head to Finland with a one-goal lead. While protecting their advantage was no doubt at the forefront of their mind when travelling to Northern Europe, they were in fact able to add to their lead, with a third qualifier goal from Simic putting them 2-0 up on aggregate before former Borussia Mönchengladbach prospect Joy-Lance Mickels finished the job.
For the first time in the qualifiers, Sabah had to come from behind after losing 2-1 against Danish side AGF in the first leg of the third round. Their qualification hopes were at risk when heading into half time at 0-0, but a rampant second half performance saw them win 4-0 on the night to record a 5-2 victory on aggregate.
Sabah had never advanced past the third round of qualifying in any European competition, but now only 180 minutes of football stood in their way of making the league phase of the UEFA Champions League.
Similarly to the third round, Dambrauskas' side returned home with a one-goal deficit after losing 2-1 to Hapoel Be'er Sheva. With the scores level at 2-2 in the reverse leg at the Tofiq Bahramov Stadium in Baku, Sabah were on the brink of elimination, but a 94th minute goal from Tellur Mutallimov took the game to extra time.
Hapoel Be'er Sheva substitute Djibril Diop was then sent off, and the hosts subsequently took the lead for the first time in the tie through Patrick Orphe M'Bina.
The tie was put to bed when second round hero Mickels made the score 5-2 in the 115th minute, securing a 6-4 victory on aggregate and sending Sabah through to the UEFA Champions League for the first time in the club's history.
From 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?' to UEFA Champions League football
Remarkably, Valdas Dambrauskas' story starts with an appearance on Lithuania's 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'.
Back in 2002, Dambrauskas entered the TV show with an eye to using any earnings to propel his coaching career.
"This is so long ago. A back-in-the-year story that really was forgotten," he told the BBC.
"Everybody now takes only this part, you know, about the money. But yes, it is a true story.
"My idea was somehow I will try to go on these (coaching) courses to gain the coaching badge, maybe go back one day to Lithuania and start to work as a football coach," Dambrauskas added.
He walked away from 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?' with 4,000 litas (approximately £725), and while this may not sound like a lot, it was six months worth of wages to Dambrauskas at the time and funded his move to England with his partner, where he began football coaching.
Eight years followed where he would coach for community projects, at a semi-professional club and within professional youth programmes, all whilst holding down jobs at a kindergarten, as a shop-assistant and a private childminder.
Manchester United Soccer Schools took a chance on Dambrauskas in 2004, and he enjoyed a spell at Fulham and later the Brentford Centre of Excellence, gaining valuable experience before returning to Lithuania to coach the U17s in 2019.
He's relished an astonishing journey since first making his first steps into management, winning trophies in Lithuania with Žalgiris, Latvia with RFS, Bulgaria with Ludogorets Razgrad, Croatia with Hajduk Split and more recently Azerbaijan with Sabah.
It's a full circle moment for Dambrauskas -- who returns to Manchester as Sabah's manager in the UEFA Champions League after working for the Red Devils as a youth coach -- and he expressed his excitement when speaking to the BBC.
He said: "This is beyond my imagination. To go through that tunnel on to that pitch.
"I've been many times to Old Trafford with the kids, and now I'm going to come as a coach.
"I lived in England when the battle between Manchester United and Arsenal was the biggest rivalry. Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger.
"Now I'm going to come back as a coach in the UEFA Champions League and to hear that anthem, it's really amazing."
