Volodymyr Muntyan

Youth years

Due to the boy's natural talent, he was included in Kyiv's youth team with people like Semen Altman and Anatoly Byshovets (both coaches now). After a Spartakiada match between the Kyiv and Moscow teams, which Kyiv won, Dynamo Kyiv youth coach Mykhaylo Koman offered young Muntyan to come to a training session with the senior team the next day at 11:00. The young boy turned up outside the ground, but was so scared to see his idols Valery Lobanovsky, Andriy Biba, that he hid behind a tree and did not make the team bus. However, his friend Anatoly Byshovets helped him to get over the fear and eventually he turned up to a training session.

Club career

Muntyan joined the Dynamo Kyiv team as a 15-year-old, when the main team coach was Victor Maslov. Despite weighing only 60 kg (9.5 stones) and being only 170 cm in height, he was encouraged to play and his skills were further enhanced by the training. Muntyan's debut match in Dynamo Kyiv's main squad took place on 15 October 1965, when his team played against Pakhtakor, winning 2:1. When five of then current squad left to join 1966 Soviet football team for the World Cup, Dynamo Kyiv managed to win a double (championship and the cup) with Muntyan stepping in from the reserves as one of the main players. In total, Muntyan won 7 championships and two Soviet Cups with Dynamo Kyiv. In 1975, he also achieved the title of UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and UEFA Super Cup champion as part of the victorious team.

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The statistics in USSR Cups and Europe is made under the scheme "autumn-spring" and enlisted in a year of start of tournaments

A son of an ethnic Russian plant worker from Moldova and a Russian nurse born in Voronezh, Muntyan became interested in acrobatics and competed successfully in Kyiv's citywide competition, winning accolades in his age category. His family eventually relocated to live near a professional soccer grounds in Kyiv, where young Muntyan and his friends would hang out, acting as ball boys to the elders. While once juggling a ball, he was approached by a soldier, who asked him if he was interested in taking up football as a sport. Muntyan said yes and was taken to Mikhail Korsunsky, who was a famous local children's coach at the time. He quickly recognised Muntyan's potential.

Muntyan was the son of a Red Army veteran who fought in the Winter War (Soviet-Finnish War), the Eastern Front of World War II, and the Soviet–Japanese War. His father, Fedir Muntyanu, had 11 brothers. When Fedir Muntyanu received his passport, he declared himself Russian. Only when Muntyan was 14 or 15 did he become aware that his father was actually from Moldova. Muntyan's mother was Russian from the Voronezh Oblast. In the Soviet times, there existed a popular anecdote about Muntyan's ancestry speculating that he may be of Armenian origin. Muntyan's father worked as a fitter at a local asphalt concrete plant. By the time Muntyan started to go to school, his family had already moved to Kyiv. During his time at school, he was interested in several types of sports such as volleyball, basketball, skiing, and ice skating. Moreover, Muntyan became even more involved in acrobatics, becoming the Kyiv city champion among student athletes at the age of 10 and receiving the adult-grade 3rd degree GTO standards in acrobatics. At that time, he never thought that he would drop out of acrobatics and become a football player. Soon, his family received a bigger apartment granted by the factory where his father worked. It so happened that the place was close to the SKA stadium (today CSK ZSU Stadium) and far away from where he practiced acrobatics. The young Muntyan started to spend more time at the stadium, where there was more football practice. Muntyan died after a long illness on 1…