Editing FC Dynamo Kyiv (section)

===Football in occupation and Start===
{{Main|The Death Match}}
[[File:Death match bill.jpg|thumb|right|Poster of the return match (in Ukrainian Cyrillic / German Latin)]]
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, a wide-scale Kyiv's encirclement ([[Battle of Kiev (1941)|Battle of Kiev]]).

For mobilization purposes, the Soviet war propaganda story is often told of how the Dynamo team, playing as "Start, City of Kyiv All-Stars", was 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. Still, this match has subsequently become known in the Soviet media as "[[The Death Match]]". This story also became part of the post-Soviet myth of the Great Patriotic War for the Russian people.

After the Nazi occupation of Ukraine began, former professional football players (Dynamo and [[FC Lokomotyv Kyiv|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 [[Syrets concentration camp|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 [[Soviet partisans|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.

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''.