Football Club Dynamo Kyiv, also known as Dynamo Kyiv, Dynamo Kiev, or simply Dynamo, (, ) is a Ukrainian professional football club based in Kyiv. Founded in 1927 as a branch of the bigger Soviet Dynamo Sports Society, the club as a separate business entity was officially formed only in 1989 and currently plays in the Ukrainian Premier League. The club has secured brand rights from the Ukrainian Dynamo society and has no direct relations with the sports society since 1989. The Ukrainian Dynamo society remains a minority shareholder of the company that owns the club. Their home is the 70,050-seat Olimpiyskiy National Sports Complex.
Since 1936, Dynamo Kyiv has spent its entire history in the top league of Soviet and later Ukrainian football, having never been relegated to a lower division. During the Soviet era, the club was one of the main rivals, and often the only rival, to football clubs from Moscow. Its ability to challenge the dominance of the Moscow clubs in Soviet football, and frequently defeat them to win the Soviet championship, was a matter of national pride for Ukraine. Leaders of the Ukrainian SSR unofficially regarded the club as their national team and provided it with generous support, making Dynamo a professional team of international importance.
The club's most successful periods are associated with Valeriy Lobanovskyi, who coached the team during three stints, leading them to numerous domestic and European titles. In 1961, the club became first-ever in the history of Soviet football that managed to overcome the total hegemony of Moscow-based clubs in the Soviet Top League. The Spartak Moscow–Dynamo Kyiv rivalry that began in the mid-1970s, is widely considered to have been one of the most exciting football rivalries in the Soviet Union. Since becoming the first Soviet football club to participate in UEFA competition in 1965, Dynamo Kyiv has played in European competitions almost every season.
Over its history, Dynamo Kyiv have won 17 Ukrainian top-flight league titles, 13 Soviet top-flight league titles, 14 Ukrainian national cup competitions, 9 Soviet national cup competitions, and three continental titles (including two UEFA Cup Winners' Cups). Its two European Cup Winners' Cups make it one of the only two Soviet clubs to have won a UEFA trophy, the other being Dinamo Tbilisi. The Dynamo Kyiv first team became a base team for the Soviet Union national football team in the 1970–1980s and the Ukraine national football team in the 1990–2000s. The three stars on the club's crest each signify 10 top-flight seasons Dynamo Kyiv won. The club was recognised as the Eastern European Club of the 20th Century by France-Presse.
History Early history: 1927–1941
The club was established on the base of the first squad of Kyiv's branch of the all-Union Dynamo sports society and its republican branch in the Ukrainian SSR, originally headquartered Kharkiv. The all-Union Dynamo sports society was a sports department of the Soviet state security KGB, originally Cheka-OGPU. During the Soviet period Dynamo's players same as players of all Dynamos in the Soviet Union were officially Soviet uniform servicemembers earning rank, salary, and pension when playing on the team of masters.
On 13 May 1927, the statute of the Kyivan Proletarian Sport Society (PST) Dynamo was officially registered by the special commission in affairs of public organizations and unions of the Kyiv district.Evgeni Kazakov. The Soviet First League in football (Первая лига СССР по футболу). History of the Soviet championships in football. Volume 1 (1936–1969). Litres, 2019 The All-Union sport society of Dynamo in Moscow was formed earlier in 1923 on the initiative of the Felix Dzerzhinsky. A year later the first Ukrainian branch cell of the Dynamo sports society was formed in Kharkiv. Under the banner of Kyivan Dynamo gathered the representatives of the local GPU (State Political Directorate), the Soviet secret police, the best footballers of which defended the honors of the Trade Union club "Sovtorgsluzhashchie", a portmanteau for Soviet retail servicemen.Sovtorgsluzhashchie at ukrsoccerhistory.com It was a common practice of the early Soviet sports societies that were formed based on already existing "pre-revolutionary" (1917 Bolshevik Revolution) sports societies in 1920s.
The leadership of Dynamo did not dare to reorganize the well-established club and the main title contender in the middle of a playing season. Therefore, the first mention of the football club Dynamo could only be found on 5 April 1928 in the Russian-language newspaper (at that time) Vecherniy Kiev ("Evening Kyiv").
It was then when by the initiative of Semyon Zapadny, chief of the Kyiv GPU, the football team was created. His deputy, Sergei Barminsky, started to form the team not only out of regular chekists (members of the Soviet secret police), but also footballers of other clubs in the city among which is mentioned a team "Sovtorgsluzhaschie".Радторгслужбовці Київ. www.kopanyi-myach.info All the footballers were either part of the consolidated city team or the city champions. The newly created team played its first official match on 1 July 1928 against a local consolidated city team while visiting Bila Tserkva. Already on the fifth minute the Dynamo-men opened the score in the game, however, at the end the club lost it 1–2.Banyas, V. 1 July 1928: the first game of Dynamo (1 липня 1928–го: перший матч «Динамо») . Ukrainian Premier League. 1 July 2018 On 15 July, the Bila Tserkva newspaper Radyanska Nyva ("Soviet Fields") put it in such words:
The next match played by Dynamo was on 17 July 1928 hosting another Dynamo from the port city of Odesa. The match ended in draw 2:2. At the end of July Dynamo toured Belarus playing against the republican team of Belarus (1:5) and the districtal team of Gomel District (3:2). On 1 September 1928 Dynamo Kyiv was hosting the Dynamo's primary team from Moscow and were thrashed 2:6. It was then Dynamo Kyiv was led by a playing coach Vasyl Boiko whose role is indicated as an instructor-organizer. Later in October 1928 Dynamo Kyiv took part in its first official tournament the 1928 Kyiv city championship and won it. On 18 November 1928 Dynamo Kyiv overpowered the Kyiv's main football team of that period, Zheldor, 1:0.
On 14 September 1929 Dynamo Kyiv played its first international match against visiting workers' team from Deutsch-Wagram, Lower Austria and lost it 3:4. Its club stadium Dynamo opened on 12 June 1933, a year before the Soviet government turned the city into capital of the Soviet Ukraine. As the club gained more experience and played on a regular basis, it started to fill the stadium with spectators with both the club and football in general gaining popularity in Soviet Ukraine.
During the first years of its existence, Dynamo predominantly took part in friendly games and until 1935 participated in the annual Ukrainian championship contested by member teams of Dynamo Society. Between 1932 and 1934 the team was on the verge of disbandment due to changes in OGPU leadership, but it became possible to preserve it thanks to the work of manager Lazar Kohen and leading players Anton Idzkovsky and Konstantin Schegotsky. After the Soviet government relocated Ukraine's capital to Kyiv in 1934, Dynamo received patronage from the republican leadership.Динамо in Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine (2025)
In 1936, the first Soviet Championship was played, and Dynamo Kyiv was one of the pioneers of the newly formed league. Under the leadership of head coach Mikhail Tovarovsky, the club finished second in the 1936 Soviet Top League, losing in the final to Spartak Moscow. In 1937 Dynamo took the 3rd place in the championship. In the 1941 season, the club only played nine matches as World War II interrupted league play.
Football in occupation and Start: 1941–1943
With the start of the German-Soviet War, as part of World War II, most sports events in the Soviet Union were suspended or discontinued. Some sports organizations and individual athletes were evacuated to Soviet Central Asia or east of the Volga River. Many footballers joined the ranks of the Soviet Red Army either voluntarily or through mobilization. Kyiv ended up under German occupation within a few months of Operation Barbarossa due to the successful encirclement of Soviet troops by German forces.
After the Nazi occupation of Ukraine began, former professional football players (Dynamo and Lokomotyv) found employment in the city's Bakery No. 3, and continued to play amateur football. The team participated in exhibition games that took place in the city among various other teams, including teams composed of the Wehrmacht soldiers. The Kyiv team played under the name of "Start", comprising eight players from Dynamo Kyiv (Mykola Trusevych, Mykhailo Svyridovskiy, Mykola Korotkykh, Oleksiy Klymenko, Fedir Tyutchev, Mikhail Putistin, Ivan Kuzmenko, and Makar Honcharenko) and three players from Lokomotyv Kyiv (Vladimir Balakin, Vasyl Sukharev, and Mykhailo Melnyk).
In July and August 1942, "Start" played a series of matches against the Germans and their allies. On 12 July, a German army team was defeated. A stronger army team was selected for the next match on 17 July, which "Start" defeated 6–0. On 19 July, "Start" defeated the Hungarian team MSG Wal 5–1. The Hungarians proposed a return match, held on 26 July, but were defeated again, 3–2.
"Start"'s streak was noticed and a match was announced for 6 August against a "most powerful" "undefeated" German Luftwaffe Flakelf (anti-aircraft artillery) team, but despite the game being talked up by the newspapers, they failed to report the 5–1 result. On 9 August, "Start" played a "friendly" against Flakelf and again defeated them. The team defeated Rukh 8:0 on 16 August, and afterwards, some of "Start"'s players were arrested by the Gestapo, tortured – Mykola Korotkykh died during the torture – and sent to the nearby labour camp at Syrets. There is speculation that the players were arrested due to the intrigues of Georgy Shvetsov, founder and trainer of the "Rukh" team, as the arrests were made a couple of days after "Start" defeated "Rukh".
In February 1943, following an attack by partisans or a conflict between the prisoners and administration, one-third of the prisoners at Syrets were killed in reprisal, including Ivan Kuzmenko, Oleksiy Klymenko, and goalkeeper Mykola Trusevych. Three of the other players – Makar Honcharenko, Fedir Tyutchev, and Mykhailo Sviridovskiy – who were in a work squad in the city that day, were arrested a few days later or, according to other sources, escaped and hid in the city until it was liberated.
Soviet war propaganda used the history of "Start" for mobilization purposes, claiming that the whole team had been executed by a firing squad in the summer of 1942 for defeating an All-Star team from the German armed forces by 5–1. The actual story, as recounted by Y. Kuznetsov, is considerably more complex. The match has subsequently came to be known in the Soviet media as "The Death Match", becoming part of the post-Soviet myth of the Great Patriotic War. The story inspired three films: the 1961 Hungarian film drama Two Half Times in Hell, the 1981 American film Escape to Victory, and the 2012 Russian film Match.
Road to the first championship title: 1944–1961 Only on 2 May 1944, after the return of the Soviet regime, a friendly match between Dynamo Kyiv and Spartak Moscow took place at the Dynamo Stadium. From the pre-war (World War II) team there remained Anton Idzkovsky, Mykola Makhynia, Petro Laiko, Pavlo Vinkovatov, Mykola Balakin, Kostyantyn Kalach, including those who participated in the 1942 matches Makar Honcharenko and former Lokomotyv Kyiv players Volodymyr Balakin, Vasyl Sukharev.