Underdog Stories / Football history
How Did Sabah FK Reach the Champions League So Quickly?
How did Sabah FK reach the Champions League? A fifth-place promotion, an academy and a 94th-minute goal took a young Azerbaijani club to Old Trafford.
By Brett Hanson · Underdog Podcasts · October 14, 2026
On September 10, 2026, Sabah FK walked onto the field at Old Trafford. The club had turned nine two days earlier. Manchester United won 4–0, yet the sight of Sabah in the Champions League was strange enough to hold its own against the score.
How did Sabah FK reach the Champions League so quickly? Founded in 2017, it entered Azerbaijan’s top division through a licensing decision after finishing fifth. It built an academy, won its first cup in 2025, then took the league title in 2026. Four qualifying rounds and a 94th-minute rescue put Sabah in the league phase.
Chris Horwedel sets out that contrast in Why We Love This Club, in the episode “Sabah FK — Nine Years to the Champions League.” Of the Old Trafford defeat, Horwedel said, “That result described the match. It did not describe what it meant for Sabah to be there.”
To understand the second part, start with a fifth-place finish.
Why was Sabah FK promoted after finishing fifth?
Sabah was founded on September 8, 2017, in Masazır, outside Baku. Its founder, property developer Yagub Huseynov, backed a new club with a rising sun on its badge. The name Sabah means “morning” in Azerbaijani. It can also mean “tomorrow.”
The club entered the second division that season and finished fifth. Fifth usually meant another year there. But the four teams above Sabah did not take top-flight places. Sabah met the football federation’s licensing rules, so it entered the Premier League in 2018.
It was an unusual start. Horwedel calls the criticism plainly: Sabah had been promoted “by paperwork rather than by football.” That describes how the place opened up. It does not tell us what the club would do with it.
Its first Premier League match offered a quick answer. On August 12, 2018, Sabah won 1–0 away to Keşlə, thanks to a Marko Dević penalty. Then came seventh place, coaching changes and several seasons without a serious title challenge. A league place had arrived fast. A good team took longer.
There was an even harder task. An investor could pay for a badge, a squad and a ground. As Horwedel put it, “He cannot simply choose what they’ll mean to a city 10 years later.”
What did Sabah FK’s academy build?
Sabah’s academy opened in 2018, using the existing Vətən football school as its base. In 2019, it began working with Dinamo Zagreb’s academy in Croatia. Sabah’s young players and coaches went there to learn.
Those dates matter. The academy was growing while the first team was still trying to settle. It gave children a place to spend years at the club, rather than asking them to feel attached to a newly bought senior squad.
Sabah’s under-19 side won its first national title in the 2023–24 season and earned a UEFA Youth League place. The club says the team’s core included children who had started playing at its academy when it opened. The under-19s won the title again in 2024–25. Sabah’s new under-17 girls side also won its league in its first season.
A youth title does not mean the senior team will soon be full of local academy players. The Champions League side was assembled from several countries. Still, those under-19 winners had something the first team could never buy ready-made: memories stretching back to their first days at Sabah.
The club’s regular home, Bank Respublika Arena, holds 8,700 people. It opened in 2014, before Sabah existed. The ground may be older than the team, but some of the academy’s first players are now old enough to remember both.
How did Sabah FK become a contender?
The first big shift came under coach Murad Musayev. Sabah finished second in the Premier League in 2022–23, with 81 points. Joy-Lance Mickels scored 17 league goals. Second place was the club’s first league medal and sent it into European qualifying.
Sabah beat Latvia’s RFS in both legs of its first European tie. Next came Partizan. The new club won 2–0 at home, a famous result. Partizan matched it in Belgrade and went through on penalties. Sabah had learned how quickly a good European night could vanish.
“Every scarf represents a choice made without family obligation.”
A year later, its tie against Maccabi Haifa barely followed the usual rules of arithmetic. Sabah won 3–0 away. Then it lost the return 6–3 after extra time. The teams were level at 6–6 on aggregate. Sabah won the shootout. It later lost both matches against St Patrick’s Athletic.
The results were uneven. They were also real experience against teams outside Azerbaijan. Horwedel seems to enjoy the absurdity of the Haifa tie: a three-goal lead somehow became a 12-goal contest. The important change was quieter. Sabah now had players and supporters who knew what a European collapse felt like, and what it took to survive one.
When did Sabah FK win its first trophy?
On May 31, 2025, Sabah faced Qarabağ in the Azerbaijani Cup final. Qarabağ was the country’s established force, the standard Sabah had to meet. The match was in Sumqayıt. It refused to end on time.
Pavol Šafranko put Sabah ahead from the penalty spot. Goalkeeper Stas Pokatilov saved a Qarabağ penalty. Qarabağ recovered, though, and led 2–1 late in the second half. Kahim Parris equalised in added time. Extra time followed.
Tellur Mutallimov scored the winner in its final minute. Sabah won 3–2. Its first trophy. That last detail is easy to miss when looking ahead to the Champions League: Mutallimov had already given the club one of its biggest moments.
The cup did not make Sabah an old club or settle the argument over its beginnings. It did give supporters a final they could name. There was a missed penalty and a late goal to argue over, which is useful when your club is younger than many of the children in its stands.
How did Sabah FK reach the Champions League?
After the cup win, Sabah appointed Lithuanian coach Valdas Dambrauskas in the summer of 2025. He had never played organised football as a child. At 25, he won 4,000 litas on a television quiz show and used the money to move to England to study coaching.
His first season at Sabah ended with the club’s first Premier League title. It secured the championship with four matches left and finished nine points ahead of Qarabağ. Sabah beat Zirə 2–1 in the cup final, too. Sabah had won two cups in two seasons. The 2025–26 league-and-cup double then gave it a place in Champions League qualifying.
A title wins entry to the qualifiers, though. It does not put a club straight into the league phase. Sabah still had four rounds to get through.
First it beat Welsh champions The New Saints and Finland’s KuPS. Then Sabah lost 2–1 away to Aarhus of Denmark. Sabah won 4–0 back in Baku. One tie remained: a play-off against Hapoel Beer-Sheva.
Sabah lost the first leg 2–1. In the return on August 25, 2026, it fell behind twice and was running out of time. Mutallimov had played only 345 minutes in the title-winning league season and had not scored. In the 94th minute, he scored the goal that levelled the tie on aggregate.
Sabah scored twice more in extra time, winning 5–2 on the night and 6–4 overall. Mutallimov’s strike did not win the tie by itself. Without it, extra time never happens.
What happened when Sabah FK reached Old Trafford?
Sabah became the youngest club to reach the Champions League league phase or its earlier group stage. Its first match there was at Manchester United on September 10, 2026, nine years and two days after its founding.
United scored four without reply. Matheus Cunha opened the scoring in the 27th minute; Bruno Fernandes and Benjamin Šeško added goals before halftime. Lisandro Martínez scored the fourth after the break. Even a kind reading of the match cannot make 4–0 sound close.
Horwedel describes 500 Sabah supporters watching at Old Trafford. They had followed a club that entered the top division through a licence, waited years for its first trophy and needed Mutallimov in stoppage time to reach Manchester. The songs were new. So were most of the stories behind them.
Horwedel said, “Every scarf represents a choice made without family obligation.” At Old Trafford, Sabah’s supporters had a score they would rather forget and a trip they could tell someone about. Their club was finally old enough for that.
The full episode of Why We Love This Club is on Underdog Podcasts, with the rest of the network's shows.
People also ask
When was Sabah FK founded?+
Sabah FK was founded on September 8, 2017, in Masazır, near Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku. It entered the country’s second division in its first season. On September 10, 2026, nine years and two days after its founding, it played Manchester United at Old Trafford in its first Champions League league-phase match.
How did Sabah FK get promoted after finishing fifth?+
Sabah finished fifth in Azerbaijan’s second division in 2017–18. The four clubs above it did not take places in the top flight, while Sabah met the federation’s licensing requirements. It entered the Premier League for 2018–19 and won its first match 1–0 away to Keşlə.
What was Sabah FK’s first major trophy?+
Sabah won its first major trophy on May 31, 2025, beating Qarabağ 3–2 after extra time in the Azerbaijani Cup final. Kahim Parris equalised in second-half added time, and Tellur Mutallimov scored the winner near the end of extra time. Sabah retained the cup the following season.
Who scored the goal that sent Sabah FK toward the Champions League league phase?+
Tellur Mutallimov scored in the 94th minute against Hapoel Beer-Sheva on August 25, 2026. His goal levelled the play-off on aggregate and forced extra time. Sabah scored twice more to win the match 5–2 and the tie 6–4. It was the club’s first qualification for the league phase.