How quiz-show winnings kick-started coach's career – with Old Trafford next

On Thursday, Valdas Dambrauskas will walk out at Old Trafford as manager of Sabah in the Champions League.

Key points

• He arrived in London in August 2002 aged 25 on a student visa with limited English.
• This additionally feels like fate for Dambrauskas – one of the buildings at London Metropolitan University on Holloway Road overlooked Emirates Stadium.
• The Lithuanian's career will come full circle, some 20 years since he created his first steps into coaching with Manchester United Soccer Schools.
• He obtained his first break at a professional club when Manchester United Soccer Schools took a chance on him in 2004.
• In 2004 he enrolled on a course in sports science and coaching at London Metropolitan University, the first real step in his career.

For context, the Lithuanian's career will come full circle, some 20 years since he created his first steps into coaching with Manchester United Soccer Schools.

This is beyond my imagination, Dambrauskas informed BBC Sport. 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." This only scratches the surface of Dambrauskas' remarkable story.

It begins with an appearance on the Lithuanian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Dambrauskas using his modest winnings to move to London and forge a career in football.

It is a tale of casual jobs, a determination to succeed and a nomadic coaching career throughout Europe – which now brings the 49-year-old back to England in the Champions League with the Azerbaijani club. How a gameshow offered Dambrauskas his break.

As Sabah's players and staff celebrated reaching the Champions League two weeks ago, unbeknownst to Dambrauskas he was becoming a social media star.

It all related to that appearance on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? In 2002.

Not since he was on the show, but how he spent the capital he won.

This is so long ago, remarked Dambrauskas with a wry smile. A back-in-the-year story that really was forgotten. And now suddenly everybody is speaking about this.

Dambrauskas walked away with 4, 000 litas (regarding £725). That might not sound like much, but it was six months' wages to the average Lithuanian.

For Dambrauskas, the real story should be his career and not a gameshow.

Everybody now takes only this part, you know, about the money, Dambrauskas remarked. But yes, it is a true story.

"My idea was somehow I will try to go on these courses to gain the coaching badge, maybe go back one day to Lithuania and start to work as a football coach."

What began with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Would map out his whole career. 'I was doing two, three, sometimes four jobs'.

Dambrauskas notes he had known since the age of 12 he would not produce it as a player, but coaching would keep him close to football.

What followed would be eight years of hard work where he would coach for community projects, at a semi-professional club, within professional youth programmes – and hold down multiple jobs while raising two children.

Then he began out coaching by volunteering with the Access to Sports Project for deprived children in Finsbury Park.

He went on to work with London Tigers, a charitable community organisation which runs teams from junior level right through to semi-professional.

Starting out as a volunteer, throughout five years he progressed to manage the first team in non-league football in the Spartan South Midlands League, FA Cup and FA Vase.

Dambrauskas became the first Lithuanian to achieve a Uefa coaching licence through the London Football Association.

"I went on every possible course, every possible conference, London Football Coaches Association meetings, " Dambrauskas remarked.

Everywhere I could go just to gain some information, some knowledge, some extra diploma, extra course. That was very important for me and I took my chances.

Dambrauskas spent five years coaching on residential courses in the UK and in Europe.

"That was the best thing that could happen in my life, " Dambrauskas remarked.

I went through three or four interviews. As I didn't have experience, I will be forever grateful to John Shiels, the way he offered me this chance.

"I'd never been in a place with so many great personalities as I got in the Manchester United Soccer Schools."

After a short spell with Fulham, Dambrauskas moved to Brentford. He credits academy director Ose Aibangee as one of the biggest influences on his career, pushing his limits.

All the while he was juggling home life and working multiple jobs to create ends meet.

"I was a gardener, a handyman, doing newspaper rounds at the beginning, also polishing floors in a pub, " Dambrauskas remarked.

So plenty of jobs. Working in retail, and then as a sports development officer, then a sports development manager, and the central YMCA. I was doing two, three, sometimes four jobs.

As well as the trip to Manchester United this week, Sabah will complete their Champions League group games at Arsenal in January.

This additionally feels like fate for Dambrauskas – one of the buildings at London Metropolitan University on Holloway Road overlooked Emirates Stadium. When asked regarding his time in England, Dambrauskas' face lights up.

"When I hear this word 'England', it for me sounds like opportunities, " Dambrauskas remarked.

"It was really amazing. England offered me all this and I'll forever be grateful." From England to 13 trophies in five countries.

Dambrauskas was working three jobs – at Brentford, London Tigers and as a sports development manager – when the opportunity arose to coach full-time.

It meant leaving England to return to Lithuania, champions Ekranas appointing him assistant first-team and reserve-team coach at the end of 2010.

Taken together, the developments around how quiz-show winnings kick-started coach' s career point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.