Valdas Dambrauskas (born 7 January 1977) is a Lithuanian professional

football manager ''Football Manager'' (also known as ''Worldwide Soccer Manager'' in North America from 2004 to 2008) is a series of football management simulation video games developed by British developer Sports Interactive and published by Sega. The game beg ...

who is the current manager of

Greek Super League The Super League Greece 1 ( el, Ελληνική Σούπερ Λιγκ 1), or Super League 1, is the highest professional association football league in Greece. The league was formed on 16 July 2006 and replaced ''Alpha Ethniki'' at the top of ...

club OFI.

Managerial career

Early career

Valdas Dambrauskas studied Sport Science and Coaching in

London Metropolitan University London Metropolitan University, commonly known as London Met, is a public university, public research university in London, England. The University of North London (formerly the Polytechnic of North London) and London Guildhall University (f ...

and worked as a coach in many famous youth academies, including

Fulham Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandsworth ...

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

and

Brentford Brentford is a suburban town in West London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It lies at the confluence of the River Brent and the Thames, west of Charing Cross. Its economy has diverse company headquarters buildings whi ...

. His first senior managerial position was with Kingsbury London Tigers in

Spartan South Midlands Football League The Spartan South Midlands Football League is an English football league covering Hertfordshire, northwest Greater London, central Buckinghamshire and southern Bedfordshire. It is a feeder to the Southern Football League or the Isthmian League, ...

Premier Division, where he managed team to the highest result in club history. For his work Dambrauskas was awarded in Active Westminster Awards. He also was head coach of

Lithuania national under-17 football team The Lithuania national under-17 football team or Lithuania U-17 represents Lithuania in association football at the under-17 youth level, and is controlled by the Lithuanian Football Federation. The team is for Lithuanian players aged 17 or under ...

between 2009 and 2010.

Ekranas

In December 2010, Dambrauskas joined Lithuanian champions Ekranas as an assistant coach to famous Lithuanian coach

Valdas Urbonas Valdas Urbonas (born 29 November 1967) is a Lithuanian professional football manager and former player who currently is the manager of the Lithuanian national team. Club career Urbonas began his career at Mokslas Vilnius, before moving to Neri ...

. Together they won domestic double in 2011 season, received

Supercup A super cup is a competition, usually but not exclusively in association football, which often forms the 'curtain raiser' to a season, and typically involves only two teams who have qualified through success in other competitions during the prev ...

and won

A Lyga The A Lyga is the top division of professional football in Lithuania. The A Lyga is an abbreviation of Aukščiausia lyga meaning Highest League. It is organized by Lithuanian Football Federation LFF ( lt, Lietuvos Futbolo Federacija). The Aukš� ...

champions title in 2012 campaign, while also reaching domestic cup final, where they lost to Žalgiris after penalties, and also placed 3rd in 2013. After Urbonas resignation, he became head coach of the team and despite scarce resources managed to place sixth in 2014 season, even though this did not help the club, and it was forced to declared bankruptcy after the season had ended. He also managed

Lithuania national under-19 football team The Lithuania national under-19 football team represents Lithuania in international football at the under-19 age level and is governed by the Lithuanian Football Federation. Recent results Achievements : Under-19 Baltic Cup winners * 2010, ...

between 2011 and 2012.

Žalgiris

On 17 December 2014, Valdas Dambrauskas became new head coach of Lithuanian champions Žalgiris. Together with the team he managed to win every domestic title until 2017, including domestic quadruple in 2016 season. Žalgiris' winning streak finally came to an end on 24 September 2017 when they lost Lithuanian Football Cup Final to

Stumbras AB Stumbras is the oldest and largest producer of strong alcoholic drinks in Kaunas, Lithuania. The company began operations in 1906. It is also the largest exporter of strong alcoholic beverages and one of the biggest taxpayers in Lithuania. T ...

. After that defeat club's morale was broken and they not only haven't won a single game in the

league League or The League may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Leagues'' (band), an American rock band * ''The League'', an American sitcom broadcast on FX and FXX about fantasy football Sports * Sports league * Rugby league, full contact footba ...

, but also were overtaken by Sūduva after a dramatic 0–3 head-to-head defeat in Marijampolė. This was Žalgiris' first league defeat by 3 goals since 2010 season. Due to these defeats Dambrauskas decided to resign on 23 October 2017.

RFS

Dambrauskas joined

Latvian Higher League Latvian Higher League or Virslīga is a professional football league and the top tier of association football in Latvia. Organised by the Latvian Football Federation, the Higher League is contested by 10 clubs. The full name of the league is Op ...

side RFS on 6 December 2017.

Gorica

Dambrauskas joined

Croatian First Football League The Hrvatska nogometna liga () ( en, Croatian football league), also known as HNL or for sponsorship reasons the SuperSport HNL, is the top Croatian professional football (soccer), football league competition, established in 1992. Previously, i ...

side

HNK Gorica Hrvatski nogometni klub Gorica ( en, Croatian Football Club Gorica), commonly referred to as HNK Gorica or simply Gorica, is a Croatian football club based in the town of Velika Gorica, located just south of the Croatian capital Zagreb. They pl ...

on 25 February 2020.

Ludogorets Razgrad

On 3 January 2021, Dambrauskas, together with club's sports director Mindaugas Nikoličius, left Gorica. The same day Valdas Dambrauskas was appointed as the head coach of Bulgarian champions PFC Ludogorets Razgrad. In early October 2021, Dambrauskas parted ways with the Razgrad team.

Managerial statistics

Honours

Managerial

Žalgiris *

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

Lithuanian Cup The Lithuanian Football Federation Cup ( lt, Lietuvos futbolo federacijos taurė), also known as Hegelmann LFF Cup for sponsorship reasons, is a Lithuanian football cup competition contested in a knockout tournament format. The winner of the cup ...

: 2014–15, 2015–16,

Lithuanian Supercup The Lithuanian Supercup () or LFF Supercup is an annual football match contested between the champions of the previous A Lyga season and the holders of the Lithuanian Football Cup. It is organised by and named after Lithuanian Football Federation a ...

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

RFS *

Latvian Cup The Latvian Football Cup () is the main Single-elimination tournament, knockout cup competition in Latvian Football (soccer), football. Since 2021, its full name is Responsible Game Latvian Football Cup (''Atbildīgas spēles Latvijas kauss'') due ...

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

Ludogorets Razgrad *

Bulgarian First League The First Professional Football League ( bg, Първа професионална футболна лига, Parva Profesionalna Futbolna Liga), also known as the Bulgarian First League or Parva Liga, currently known as the efbet League for spon ...

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

Hajduk Split *

Croatian Football Cup The Hrvatski nogometni kup ( eng, Croatian football cup), also colloquially known as Rabuzinovo sunce (), is an annually held football tournament for Croatian football clubs and is the second most important competition in Croatian football after th ...

: 2021–22 Individual * Active Westminster Awards Active Coach: 2010 * A Lyga Manager of the Round: 2016 3rd round, 2017 1st round * Lithuanian Coach of the Year: 2016, 2020, 2021

References

External links

Profile at lfe.lt
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dambrauskas, Valdas 1977 births Living people People from Pakruojis Lithuanian football managers FK Ekranas managers FK Žalgiris managers FK RFS managers PFC Ludogorets Razgrad managers HNK Hajduk Split managers Lithuanian expatriate football managers Expatriate football managers in England Lithuanian expatriate sportspeople in England Expatriate football managers in Latvia Lithuanian expatriate sportspeople in Latvia Expatriate football managers in Croatia Lithuanian expatriate sportspeople in Croatia Expatriate football managers in Bulgaria Lithuanian expatriate sportspeople in Bulgaria Brentford F.C. non-playing staff