There is one version of V. Dambrauskas’s story that is especially convenient for social media. Short, beautiful, and almost too perfect.
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In 2002, the Lithuanian participated in a television quiz, won 4000 litas – and used this money to move to England.
After 24 years, he is already coaching a team in the Champions League.
It is no surprise that this story spread widely again after the “Sabah” club coached by V. Dambrauskas reached the Champions League stage for the first time in the club’s history.
However, the coach himself says that such a nicely packaged story is also misleading. Between winning the television quiz and the Champions League, there were more than two decades of work, doubts, failures, risky decisions, and many people without whom it could have turned out completely differently.
“I would actually like no one to know that story about the television quiz because people only see that!
People see: okay, he won and suddenly now he is the head coach. But so many factors, so many people, so many circumstances have to come together to achieve what you want.
That TV show, of course, had some influence – but it was very, very small.
I truly believe that even without that TV show, I would have found a way to go to England,” said V. Dambrauskas.
England – without language, money, and a clear path
The real path was much more complicated.
V. Dambrauskas arrived in the United Kingdom with little knowledge of English and no clear path to professional football.
He wanted to become a coach since his teenage years. At 13, he watched the 1990 World Cup and already understood that a professional footballer’s career would most likely remain an unfulfilled dream. But he did not want to give up football.
In 2003, he enrolled in his first coaching courses.
“In 2003, I registered for the first coaching courses. I didn’t even have a proper bank account.
When I wanted to pay for the coaching course, I put the money in an envelope and sent it to the London Football Association. I’m glad that money didn’t disappear!” the coach said.
V. Dambrauskas moved to England with his girlfriend, who later became his wife. Both initially attended English language school, but soon had to balance lessons with much more earthly concerns – they needed to work and earn a living.
The coach’s dream at that time might have seemed hard to explain from the outside.
“Sometimes I felt doubts, not from my wife, but from more distant relatives: ‘What is this man doing? He is already over 30, he is constantly studying and trying to do something in football without money. What is he trying to achieve?
Eventually, I started learning English by reading newspapers, football sections. But my spoken English was really poor.
I remember my first coaching courses – level 1 in 2003. I came to the final exam and learned by heart what I wanted to say during the session. You can’t coach like that – you have to react to what people say.
But somehow I passed!” the strategist recalled.
After a year, in the level two courses, the situation was quite different. English improved, and gradually the first football doors opened.
V. Dambrauskas gained experience at “Manchester United Soccer Schools,” later started volunteering at “London Tigers,” and eventually got a permanent job as a sports development manager at this club.
But professional football was still very far away.
Hundreds of letters and one “yes”
V. Dambrauskas sent, in his own words, “hundreds, maybe thousands” of emails to clubs and academies. For a long time, there was no response that would realistically change his situation.
The coach still has a “Yahoo” email account that he created back in 2002 when he arrived in England. It contains old emails – a kind of digital archive of times when he had to ask almost everyone for opportunities.
“Sometimes I open it and review emails from 2004, 2005 – what I thought then, what emails I was sending,” he recalls.
“At that time, no one, no one, no one accepted me.
I had many job interviews. They said: ‘Oh, you are good. You have all the necessary education… but you are overqualified for us.’ I never understood what that means – how can you be overqualified for a job?
But now looking back, I see Brentford as the club that gave me this opportunity.
It was before Brentford became Brentford. Now Brentford is a Premier League club, and I have supported it since then.”
The path to the London club started through youth coach Ash Rahman. He introduced V. Dambrauskas to Ose Aibangee, who had recently been appointed to lead Brentford’s youth development center “Centre of Excellence.”
Aibangee agreed to watch how the Lithuanian conducted a training session. After it, he offered a part-time job within the Brentford system.
It was a turning point, although at that time V. Dambrauskas experienced it not only as joy.
About four months later, the summer break began, and V. Dambrauskas went to Lithuania with his family. But instead of calmly enjoying the holidays, the coach counted how many days were left until his return.
“I counted: four vacation days left, three left, two left, one left. I was scared. I couldn’t even think about returning to Brentford because Ose pushed us so hard to the limits.
It seemed to me that he was constantly pressuring me. All the guys said: ‘Look, it’s the opposite. He likes you. That’s why he pushes you.’
Then at some point, he came and said: ‘Wow, you held the best training session I’ve ever seen.’ I almost cried.
I think he is the person who had the greatest impact on my career,” said the coach.
To training sessions – by night buses
In autumn, V. Dambrauskas’s working hours in the Brentford system increased. Training sessions took place in different parts of London, including the club base at Jersey Road, near Heathrow Airport.
All this had to be balanced with constant work at London Tigers, family, and life in North London.
Sunday morning training sessions were especially difficult. The London Underground did not start running early enough at that time for Dambrauskas to reach the other side of the city on time.
So he traveled to training overnight.
“I had to take night buses.
I usually started the journey at 3 or 4 a.m., traveled to London Bridge, then transferred to another bus and traveled all the way to Jersey Road, which is near Heathrow.
I arrived there almost sleepless after the whole night,” the Lithuanian said.
Brentford brought V. Dambrauskas closer to professional football but also helped him understand another, much more painful thing – if he really wants to become the head coach of a professional team, he will probably have to leave England.
“I realized that becoming a professional football coach in England and climbing the career ladder, becoming a head coach or manager, was impossible.
Having a Lithuanian passport, a country name that no one can pronounce, a surname that no one can pronounce, and, besides, I was never a professional player.
But I knew that my experience at Brentford, as well as coaching qualification certificates, could give me a chance somewhere else.
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I already had a good position in England. I had a great job, finished university, so things were going well and the situation was excellent.
But my dream was so big that I packed my things into a van, put my two sons and wife in it, and we returned to Lithuania,” the coach said.
Five times lower salary
At the end of 2010, the then Lithuanian champion Panevėžys “Ekranas” offered V. Dambrauskas two positions – to become the assistant head coach of the main team and simultaneously lead the reserve team.
From a sporting point of view, it was an opportunity he had long awaited. Financially – a huge step back.
V. Dambrauskas earned about five times less in Lithuania than in England.
At first, the risk seemed justified, but in the third year, “Ekranas” was hit by serious financial problems. Salaries were delayed for months, and the coach, already raising a young family, had to think not only about football but also about daily expenses and housing rent.
As older players and staff left the club, V. Dambrauskas began restructuring the team, relying on young Lithuanians, many of whom he knew from working with youth national teams.
Later, after moving to Vilnius “Žalgiris,” the experience gained in previous years began to turn into titles.
In 2015, V. Dambrauskas became the national champion for the first time as a head coach. But even then, he set a much higher bar for himself – he intended to call his story truly successful only when he reached the Champions League or left a significant mark in European tournaments.
After Lithuania came Latvia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, and Hungary.
V. Dambrauskas accumulated titles, became Bulgarian champion with “Ludogorec,” and won the first important club trophy in nine years with Split’s “Hajduk.”
It all started from the opportunity once given by Brentford.
“I knew that my experience at Brentford, as well as coaching licenses, could give me a chance to work elsewhere,” the coach insisted.
“Sabah” and the long-awaited Champions League
Before arriving at “Sabah,” V. Dambrauskas had already worked as a head coach in different countries and football cultures for more than a decade. But one ambition remained unchanged – the Champions League.
When the Lithuanian took over the Azerbaijani club, “Sabah” was 41 points behind the country’s dominant “Qarabag” last season. At that time, “Qarabag” had won 11 of the last 12 Azerbaijani championships.
After a year, the situation had changed beyond recognition.
“Sabah” won the national championship and cup, and in five matches against “Qarabag,” they never lost.
In the European qualifiers, Dambrauskas’s team defeated “The New Saints” and KuPS, later recovering after a loss in the first match against AGF.
The encounter with Beer Sheva’s “Hapoel” was even more dramatic. “Sabah” lost the first match 1:2, and in the return match, with about half an hour left, the Azerbaijani club was still two goals away from elimination.
August 25, when “Sabah” finally advanced to the next stage, coincided with V. Dambrauskas’s son’s birthday.
At that time, he had returned to North London – the neighborhoods and streets where he himself grew up.
Not finding a bar showing his father’s team’s match, the coach’s son watched the game on his phone with his girlfriend.
And then, in the 94th minute, with the score 2:2 and “Sabah” desperately seeking a winning goal, his mobile internet data ran out.
“Our goalkeeper came to the penalty area for a corner… and everything disappeared from his screen!
His girlfriend turned on her phone, and they saw the score was 3:2.
Later he texted me and said: ‘I have never cried so much in my life,'” the coach said.
So when talking about the historic entry into the Champions League, V. Dambrauskas first remembers not the famous tournament anthem, “Barcelona,” “Manchester United,” or other upcoming opponents.
The first thought was about family.
“The first feeling was for my family and how they rejoice. They think it’s my merit, but actually, we do it together.
I know how many times they got angry and disappointed when things didn’t go as they should, when you were fired from a job.
Over the years, how many times they said: ‘Don’t worry, you’ll win next time,’ even when you know you lost where you shouldn’t have?
“At the moment the match ends, you think about nothing else. Just: okay, I fulfilled my duty. I gave everything I could,” the coach explained his philosophy.
“Can we compete?”
In the debut Champions League stage, “Sabah” faces matches against “Barcelona” and Borussia Dortmund, as well as away games at “Manchester United” and London “Arsenal.”
In the Opta power rankings, the schedule for the Azerbaijani champions is rated as the toughest among all 36 tournament participants.
“Sabah” is also the only one of 28 teams that started the European season already in the first Champions League qualifying round and managed to reach the league stage.
Still, Dambrauskas does not want to talk about a specific number of points his team must collect. The first goal is different – to understand whether “Sabah” can compete at this level.
“For me, the result is not important, but the game. Can we compete? Can we go and show something? Can we create chances? Can we score? Can we press the opponents? We will find out very, very quickly, and that is exactly what I aim for,” the strategist explained.
Return to Old Trafford
One of the most symbolic “Sabah” trips awaits in Manchester.
V. Dambrauskas will enter Old Trafford already as the head coach of a Champions League team – into a stadium that once seemed almost unreachable to him.
His sympathies for “Manchester United” appeared back in 1994. At that time, a Russian TV channel started showing recorded England FA Cup matches late on Saturday evenings.
V. Dambrauskas still remembers the final where Eric Cantona scored two penalties, and Man Utd crushed Chelsea 4:0.
“There was always England, there was always Manchester United,” he recalls. “But at that time, I couldn’t even imagine that I would ever go to Old Trafford.
You see those people in the stands celebrating a goal, and for me, it was like showing people on the Moon or Mars.”
More than three decades later, those stands will no longer be an image from a TV screen.
V. Dambrauskas will return to Old Trafford as a Champions League head coach – after a path where winning a TV quiz was just a small, albeit most attractively told, part of the whole story.
