Dynamo Kyiv is the most accomplished Soviet and post-Soviet football team. Its accomplishments include numerous USSR and Ukraine championships and National Cups as well as UEFA trophies. The full list of Dynamo Kyiv’s accomplishments can be found here .
Below you will find an ever growing account of Dynamo Kyiv’s history divided, to the best of my ability, into more or less self-contained epochs of the club’s history.
Dynamo Kyiv was founded in 1927 as a sports society of Police and the Ministry of Interior. This society had already existed in several major cities in USSR, particularly in Moscow, where the Dynamo Moscow team was one of the best teams in Moscow championships. These early Soviet teams did not consist of proffessional football players, they included the employees of the organizations they represented. For example, all Dynamo Kyiv players held posts in the police.
During this the earliest epoch of the club's history, Dynamo Kyiv was not an elite team in USSR, in fact, they were not always the best Kyiv team. In Kyiv, they had to deal with ZhelDor (Lokomotiv) Kyiv, a very strong local competitor, representing the SouthWestern Railway System workers. In Kharkiv, which until 1934 was the capital of Ukrainian SSR, there were several strong teams as well. In fact, Kharkiv was considered the capital of Ukrainian football, proving it in national competitions. There were no real club competitions in USSR back then, there were, however, competitions involving largest cities in the country. Ukraine, more often than not, was represented by teams from Kharkiv. But slowly, by 1935, Dynamo Kyiv emerged as the best team from Kyiv. Aided by the move of Ukrainian capital from Kharkiv to Kyiv, Dynamo Kyiv became a natural choice to represent Ukraine in the first official USSR Football Championship, in the Spring of 1936, thus a new chapter of Dynamo Kyiv's history began
During the first years of USSR Championships, Dynamo Kyiv had showed that Ukrainian football is among the best in Soviet Union. In 1936-1941, Dynamo Kyiv managed to finish second in the very first championship (Spring 1936) and third in the 1937 Championship. They also finished 4th in 1938.
Dynamo Kyiv also showed its strength in Europe, where in 1936 as a basis of Ukrainian Select Team they defeated powerful Red Star from Paris 6-1 and defeated several European trade union teams with a combined score of 88-3.
That same year Dynamo Kyiv defeated Turkish National Team, 9-1 and next year they lost to the Basque Select Team, 1-3.
Several Dynamo Kyiv players of that time were among the best Soviet Football had to offer: Nikolai Trusevich, Anton Idzkovskiy, Mikhail Sviridovskiy, V. Shilovskiy, K. Schegodskiy, K. Piontkovskiy, V. Prokofiev, M. Volin, I. Lifshits, Nikolay Makhinya. They were coached by the legendary Mikhail Tovarovskiy.
During the World War II, many Dynamo Kyiv players were unable to escape German occupation. During the occupation, they were all employed at Kyiv Bread Factory. In August 1942, Germans found out about the players of Dynamo Kyiv still in Kyiv and decided to show the German superiority by beating this team. By a German order, a team Start was formed. This team included 8 Dynamo Kyiv players and several players of Lokomotiv Kyiv who were also unable to escape occupation. The team included following players: Nikolai Trusevich, Mikhail Sviridovskiy, Nikolai Korotkikh, Aleksey Klimenko, Fedor Tyutchev, Mikhail Putistin, Ivan Kuzmenko, Makar Goncharenko (Dynamo Kyiv), Vladimir Balakin, Vasiliy Sukharev, and Mikhail Melnik (Lokomotiv Kyiv). Germans brought in several leading professional and military teams from Germany and Hungary, and Start players, starving and under conditioned, defeated them all. Soon after Kyiv players had won their last game, some of them were suspected of sabotage and supporting local resistance groups, so the german authorities had arrested many of the Kyiv players, put them into a concentration camp, and, after a camp insurrection, executed several of them. Among the executed were Nikolai Trusevich, Ivan Kuzmenko, Aleksey Klimenko, and Nikolai Korotkikh. There had been reports that right before the execution Nikolai Trusevich cried out, "Red Sport will triumph!" As the result of the war and occupation, Dynamo Kyiv was seriously damaged and it would take a long time for them to recover their pre-war significance in Soviet football. A more complete version of the events of 1942 can be found here.
In 1960, Dynamo Kyiv finished second to Torpedo Moscow. Next year not even all the stars of Torpedo Moscow could prevent Dynamo Kyiv from becoming the first non-Moscow team to win the USSR championship title.
The fame of Dynamo Kyiv was further strengthened by new coach V. Maslov, who was invited to lead Dynamo Kyiv in 1963. In 1964, Dynamo Kyiv again won the Cup, and in 1966-1968, they won three straight USSR championships (the feat that has not been bested in Soviet football's history). Also, Dynamo Kyiv had become the first soviet club to enter UEFA arena. By 1967, they already defeated Scottish Celtic, one of the top teams in European Football of that time. 4 Dynamo Kyiv players (Ostrovskiy, Sabo, Porkuyan, Serebryannikov) played on 1966 USSR World Cup team in England that placed 4th. 6 Dynamo Kyiv players played on 1970 USSR WC team (Serebryannikov, Muntyan, Puzach, Byshovets, Khmelnitskiy, Rudakov). Dynamo Kyiv added another USSR title in 1971. But the most important event in the early 70s Dynamo Kyiv was the arrival of the new head coach, Valeriy Lobanovskiy, who would become one of the best coaches in the history of football and will take Dynamo to the heights of European prominence. His training program was new and unheard of, very physical, and very team-oriented. He was also aided by the arrival of a yet new generation of future Dynamo Kyiv stars: Blokhin, Buryak, Onischenko, Veremeev, Kolotov, etc. This process took place in 1974 and Dynamo Kyiv players responded by winning a "double", Championship and a Cup, in 1974.
In 1977, Dynamo Kyiv won another domestic championship title and reached the semifinals of UEFA Champions' Cup. They followed it up next year with their fifth Cup. A new generation of Dynamo Kyiv players was growing up to replace the honored veterans: V. Lozinskiy, V. Bessonov, Anatoli Demyanenko, Sergei Baltacha, Vassili Evtushenko, Yuriy Romenskiy, Andrei Bal', V. Kaplun, A. Khapsalis and other talented players in Dynamo's pipeline.
These youngsters helped the few remaining veterans to win two straight championships in 1980 and 1981. In 1982, Dynamo Kyiv sent 8 players to the 1982 WC in Spain as the base of USSR team. Most will remember the goal Andrei Bal had scored there in the preliminary round match against Brazil.
Dynamo Kyiv had hit a slump in 1982-1984. The team struggled while replacing the retiring veterans and developing the young generation. But, in 1985, Dynamo Kyiv was again poised for great things.
In 1985, Dynamo Kyiv had won the championship (their 11th) and Cup double. But the great success came next year. In the season of 1985, Oleg Blokhin, a heralded leader of Dynamo Kyiv and Soviet football, had achieved a unique record: 200 goals in USSR Championships. No player has been able to even approach this number. The second best was Ponomarev of Traktor Stalingrad, who retired in 1952, with 148 goals. In 1985/1986 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, Dynamo Kyiv swept all the opposition off their road to the trophy: Utrecht, Universitatea, Rapid, Dukla, and, in the final, Dynamo Kyiv confidently destroyed Atletico Madrid, 3-0! Once again, Dynamo Kyiv had climbed atop of the second most prestigious club competition on the continent. The club followed that success with their 12th USSR Championship (no team in the history of Soviet football has been able to achieve such success!) In 1987-1989, for many reasons, Dynamo Kyiv had been unable to return to their winning ways. They managed to reach the pedestal twice more and win one more Soviet Cup. In 1987 they even reached the UEFA Champions' Cup semifinals once again. But the processes of democratization and freedom brewing in the country since 1985 had opened the doors to many talented Soviet footballers to the West. Most talented Dynamo Kyiv players had chosen to play abroad for large contracts and other incentives. Dynamo Kyiv, in the meantime, was trying to grow yet another crop of talented players. They were able to lure Oleg Protasov and Gennadi Litovchenko from a very strong Dnipro team. Protasov had already won the Silver boots - an award for the second highest scorer in domestic competitions in Europe in 1987. In addition, the club pipeline produced several great young players, such as Salenko, Sergei Yuran, Oleg Luzhniy, who were able, once again, to lift Dynamo Kyiv to yet another title in 1990. Unfortunately, in 1991, the last season of USSR domestic league competition, the team was unable to repeat the earlier success. Nevertheless, at the end of USSR Elite League's history, Dynamo Kyiv stood as the team that has won the most championship titles in Soviet football history - 13!
