If you spotted Sabah FK among Europe’s giants and wondered where the club came from, the answer begins in Masazir, Azerbaijan. Founded in 2017, they won their first national league title in 2025/26, survived four Champions League qualifying ties and opened their league-phase campaign with a 4–0 defeat by Manchester United at Old Trafford. The score exposed the difference in level; reaching this stage was nevertheless an unprecedented achievement for a nine-year-old institution.
A young club rising quickly
Sabah were established in September 2017 and spent their early years navigating coaching changes while gradually developing their sporting structure. Their first European qualification followed a second-place finish in the 2022/23 Azerbaijan Premier League. In 2025, they lifted their first major trophy, the Azerbaijan Cup.
The following season changed their scale. Under Lithuanian coach Valdas Dambrauskas, Sabah won their first league title — nine points ahead of Qarabağ — and retained the cup to complete a domestic double. UEFA’s account of their journey also records a 33-match unbeaten run and identifies Sabah as the youngest club ever to reach a Champions League group or league phase.
The dramatic route into the league phase
As an unseeded side, Sabah had to overcome four opponents. They eliminated Welsh champions The New Saints 4–1 on aggregate and Finland’s KuPS Kuopio 3–0. After losing 2–1 to Aarhus in Denmark, they responded with a 4–0 victory in Baku.
The play-off against Hapoel Beer-Sheva was tighter still. Sabah had lost the first leg 2–1 and fell behind twice in the return. In the 94th minute, Tellur Mutallimov made it 3–2 and forced extra time. Two more goals delivered a 5–2 win and a 6–4 aggregate triumph. One detail makes the comeback even more striking: Mutallimov had not scored and had played only 345 minutes during the domestic title campaign.
Overall, Sabah won six and lost two of their eight qualifiers, keeping four clean sheets, according to UEFA’s statistical preview.
Why Old Trafford revealed such a large contrast
The opening match brought together opposite levels of experience. Manchester United began their 26th Champions League campaign — an English record — and played their 300th European Cup match. For Sabah, this was a first appearance in the competition proper and only the fourth European season in their history.
The clubs had never met, and neither had previously faced a team from the other’s country. United’s 4–0 victory on 10 September confirmed the expected difficulty. Yet reading the game only as a heavy defeat erases its context: Sabah emerged from four preliminary rounds and stepped directly into an arena where the hosts carried decades of continental history.
The people behind Sabah’s progress
Dambrauskas arrived in Azerbaijan in 2025 after working in countries including Latvia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus and Hungary. His own path into professional football was unusual: at 25, he used prize money from a Lithuanian television quiz show to study Sports Science and Coaching in London.
On the pitch, Veljko Simić led Sabah in qualifying with six goals in eight games. The forward also scored 11 times in the 2025/26 domestic league. Joy-Lance Mickels registered 19 goals in that competition and contributed four goals and one assist in qualifying. Polish full-back Tymoteusz Puchacz entered the campaign with 15 senior international appearances. They are the principal names highlighted in UEFA’s squad profile.
What follows the debut
The schedule remains demanding. Sabah are still due to host Slavia Praha, Borussia Dortmund, Barcelona and Napoli, while travelling to Viking, Villarreal and Arsenal. The combination matters: the opponents bring markedly different profiles and traditions, and one defeat does not define the entire campaign.
The league phase contains 36 teams, with the UEFA club-by-club schedule listing eight matches for each participant. Dates and arrangements may change, so check the official page before following each round.
A new way to read Europe’s football map
Sabah are one of four league-phase newcomers, alongside Como, LASK and Viking. They are also only the second Azerbaijani club to reach the competition proper, after Qarabağ. Their presence does not erase the sporting inequality seen in Manchester, but it makes one compelling consequence of the format visible: supporters encounter football stories that rarely shared a table with the continent’s established powers.
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