Sabah FK
Also written as Sabah, Sabah Baku.
The club
Sabah Futbol Klubu were formed on 8 September 2017 and are the youngest club of any size in Azerbaijani football. They play at the Bank Respublika Arena in Masazir, on the edge of Baku, capacity 8,969. The nicknames are Bayquslar, the Owls, Telebeler, the Students, and Qara-cehrayilar, the Black-and-Pinks. They play in black. Magsud Adigozalov is president and Valdas Dambrauskas of Lithuania has been head coach since 20 June 2025, on a three-year contract.
The football feed calls them "Sabah Baku"; the club calls itself simply Sabah.
Recent seasons
Sabah joined the Azerbaijan First Division for 2017/18 and finished fifth. When the four clubs above them failed or declined promotion, Sabah were granted a Premier League licence on 12 May 2018. They won their first top-flight match 1-0 against Kesla, now Samaxi, on 12 August 2018 through Marko Devic, and finished seventh.
They were runners-up in 2022/23 with 81 points, 25 wins, 6 draws and 5 defeats, scoring 75 and conceding 24, with Joy-Lance Mickels scoring 17. In 2023/24 they were third on 58 points from 36 matches. In 2024/25 they slipped to fifth on 48 points, ten wins and 18 draws, but won the Azerbaijan Cup.
The 2025/26 season brought the double. Sabah won the Premier League for the first time, taking 78 points from 33 matches with 24 wins, 6 draws and 3 defeats, scoring 75 and conceding 25. The title was confirmed on 30 April 2026 when Qarabag lost 2-1 to Neftci. On 13 May 2026 they beat Zira 2-1 to retain the Azerbaijan Cup. Mickels scored 19.
Honours and landmarks
Azerbaijan Premier League: winners once, 2025/26; runners-up once, 2022/23. Azerbaijan Cup: winners twice, 2024/25 and 2025/26. For a club founded in 2017, that is the whole trophy cabinet, and all of it has arrived since 2025.
Notable scorelines
The biggest European result in the club's short history is the 4-0 home win over AGF on 11 August 2026 that overturned a first-leg deficit and put Sabah into a Champions League play-off. Before that, the 3-0 away win over Maccabi Haifa in July 2024, which levelled a tie Sabah had lost 6-3 at home in the first leg, is the one usually cited; they won that shoot-out 3-2. The club's record domestic win and record defeat were not established from the sources read here.
European record
To 11 August 2026 Sabah had played 20 matches in UEFA competition, winning 11, drawing one and losing eight, scoring 35 and conceding 24. Six of those games are in the Champions League, all in 2026/27, and Sabah have won five of them, losing one, with 12 goals scored and three conceded.
Their European debut came in 2023/24. They beat RFS of Latvia 4-1 on aggregate in the Conference League second qualifying round, then went out to Partizan on penalties in the third, winning 2-0 at home and losing 2-0 after extra time in Belgrade before losing the shoot-out 5-4. In 2024/25 they beat Maccabi Haifa in the second qualifying round after an extraordinary tie, losing 6-3 at home after extra time and winning 3-0 away for 6-6 and a 3-2 shoot-out, then lost 2-0 on aggregate to St Patrick's Athletic in the third. In 2025/26 they lost the Europa League first qualifying round 6-5 to Celje of Slovenia, beat Petrocub Hincesti 6-1 in the Conference League second round, and lost 3-0 on aggregate to Levski Sofia in the third.
The 2026/27 campaign is by some distance the best they have had. As Azerbaijani champions Sabah entered the Champions League at the first qualifying round and beat The New Saints 4-1 on aggregate, winning 2-0 at home on 7 July in front of 7,000 and 2-1 in Wales on 14 July. They beat KuPS of Finland 3-0 on aggregate, 1-0 at home on 21 July in front of 7,100 and 2-0 in Kuopio on 28 July, which the club described at the time as a historic result. In the third qualifying round they lost 2-1 away to AGF on 5 August, James Bogere scoring twice for the Danish side and Veljko Simic replying on 67 minutes in front of 8,970; the venue for that leg was not confirmed from the sources read here. They then won the return 4-0 at the Bank Respublika Arena on 11 August in front of 8,900, Simic scoring on 59, Steve Solvet on 67, Mickels on 78 and Xander Severina on 89, with Willy Delajod of France refereeing. Sabah went through 5-2.
Quotes
No directly quoted material was confirmed from the sources read here. The club's own site published items on 4, 5 and 10 August 2026 introducing press conferences given by Valdas Dambrauskas before and after both legs against AGF, but the pages read carried only the introductions, not the coach's words, and no other publication carrying his remarks verbatim could be confirmed.
Right now (2026/27)
Valdas Dambrauskas is head coach. The Azerbaijan Premier League does not start until 14 August 2026, so Sabah have played nothing but European football this season. The one senior departure confirmed this summer is Aaron Maluda, 20, sold to Basel of Switzerland on 29 July 2026.
The European tie they are in right now is the Champions League play-off round, Champions Path, against Hapoel Be'er Sheva of Israel. The first leg is away on 19 August 2026 and the second at home on 25 August. Sabah played all three of their earlier home ties this summer at the Bank Respublika Arena; whether the play-off leg will be staged there or moved to a larger Baku ground was not confirmed from the sources read here.
Whatever happens in that tie, Sabah are already guaranteed league-phase football for the first time in the club's history: the winners go into the Champions League league phase and the losers into the Europa League league phase.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabah_FK_(Azerbaijan) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabah_FK_in_European_football https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_Azerbaijan_Premier_League https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_Azerbaijan_Premier_League https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_UEFA_Champions_League_qualifying https://sabahfc.az/news https://sabahfc.az/news/404 https://sabahfc.az/news/405 https://sabahfc.az/news/409 https://sabahfc.az/news/410
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.