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Sabah manager Valdas Dambrauskas has spoken about how special it will be to lead his side out against Manchester United at Old Trafford on Sunday.

Sabah have caught the football world’s attention with their rapid rise. Formed only in 2017, the club are set to realise the dream of playing in the Champions League this season.

No one better represents the club’s extraordinary progress than their manager, whose own journey from relative obscurity to the Champions League reads like a fairytale.

Dambrauskas famously appeared on ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’ in 2002, and the prize money he won on the show helped him chase what had seemed an unlikely ambition of becoming a football manager.

He did not have a football career and was still a student when he appeared on the Lithuanian version of the show. He won 4,000 Lithuanian litas, which he used to fund a move to England. There, he studied Sports Science and Coaching at London Metropolitan University and, during that period, worked with several youth academies and setups, including Manchester United, Brentford and Fulham.

He later took charge of Kingsbury London Tigers in the ninth tier and impressed there before returning to Lithuania to coach in the youth setup.

The 49-year-old enjoyed trophy-filled spells in Latvia, Bulgaria and Croatia, but it is at Sabah where he has left his biggest imprint. Appointed last summer, he quickly delivered the club’s first league title as part of a domestic double.

Sabah were the only one of the 28 teams that entered in the first qualifying round to come through all four stages and reach the league phase of the Champions League.

He will now hope to write another chapter in that fairytale when his team travel to Old Trafford this week.

Dambrauskas told the BBC as he reflected on his journey and the upcoming opportunity to test himself against Michael Carrick’s side.

Speaking about facing United, 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.”

When asked about appearing on ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’, he replied, “This is so long ago. A back-in-the-year story that really was forgotten. And now suddenly everybody is speaking about this.”

“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.”

On being part of Manchester United Soccer Schools in 2004, he said, “That was the best thing that could happen in my life.”

“I went through three or four interviews. I will be forever grateful to [Foundation chief executive] John Shiels, the way he gave me this chance, because I didn’t have experience.”

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

He also revealed the huge challenge of juggling multiple jobs, raising a family and pursuing his football dream at the same time.

United vs Sabah kicks off at 8 pm.