Soubak hails from Fodby, a small village west of Næstved.[3] During his childhood, he became a fan of both association football, particularly the Brazilian team and its star Pelé, and handball, a sport he took up playing. In college, he studied to coach both sports, and soon after graduating, Soubak begun coaching child and junior teams simultaneously to volunteer work for the Red Cross.[4] Denmark had received many refugees of the Yugoslav wars, and Soubak organized sports activities for the expatriates, while also providing language classes and directing them to local clubs.[5] His first coaching job happened in 1994 for Virum-Sorgenfri.[6]
As a Danish female team had recently visited Brazil, in 1993 Soubak decided to visit the South American country in search of local contacts, despite not knowing neither Portuguese nor even Spanish.[5] This came to help him in 1995, as Soubak worked in the junior teams of FCK Håndbold and met a Brazilian coach (Eduardo Henrique de Macedo) who was studying the Danish handball. Said coach brought Soubak to manage a team in Osasco, but the Dane only remained there for six months dissatisfied with the lack of infrastructure and resources.[7] Upon his return to Denmark, Soubak coached both Virum-Sorgenfri and GOG without much success. Afterwards Soubak earned national recognition as a handball commenter for TV2, between 2000 and 2005.[8] In the meantime, he coached the women's teams of GOG and FCK - the latter featuring Brazilian goalkeeper Chana Masson - and the Denmark men's national youth handball team.[6][9]
