In memory of the Master: Volodymyr Muntyan’s 6 European Cup goals

Volodymyr Muntyan… An idol from a distant childhood, when you knew that the best football players played in your city in almost all positions. Valery Lobanovsky called his protégé “one of the brightest figures… of European football in the late 1960s – the first half of the 1970s.” “7th – Volodymyr Muntyan”, – the phrase of football television commentators of the stagnation era was firmly etched in memory, forever connecting the Kyiv “fantasist” with this magically lucky number. A creator on the football field, he generously gave exquisite passes, pleased the fan’s eye with his non-standard actions and at the same time impressed with his endurance. But today I want to mention his goals, namely “little miracles” in the European Cup competitions. It’s no secret that we, at that time, put matches in the European Cups on a separate pedestal. And this “worship before the foreign country” was for the Soviet man a kind of window into the world, which was virtually impossible to travel to in the 1970s. That is why special attention is paid to Eurogoal possessions.

1. 17.09.69. Champions Cup. “Austria” – “Dynamo” (Kyiv) – 1:2. Muntyan, 58 (1:2)

Volodymyr Fedorovych’s first goal in the European Cup came at the end of the 1960s and became the winner in a rather difficult away match in Vienna. Muntyan, controlling the ball, moved from the right flank to the center, tried to play with Anatoly Byshovets. By and large, it didn’t work out, but in the end the ball ended up in Muntyan’s hands again, and the young midfielder shot with his left foot, not hard, but well (what’s called, just right!), and the ball flew off the post into the goal.

2. 01.10.69. Champions Cup. “Dynamo” (Kyiv) – “Austria” – 3:1. Muntyan, 48 (1:1)

Until now, I carefully keep the bright yellow-yellow program from this match. And in Kyiv, the Austrian team opened the score. And again at the beginning of the 2nd half, the Kyivans got down to business. Byshovets’ first shot was deflected by the visitors’ goalkeeper Josef Schneider, after that Byshovets hit the post a second time, and then Muntyan was the first to finish and, outrunning two defenders, as well as Byshovets himself, directed the ball into the goal.

3. 25.10.1972. Champions Cup. “Dynamo” (Kyiv) – “Hurnik” (Zabrze) – 2:0. Muntyan, 60, from the penalty (1:0)

Of course, it’s a special feeling when you score a goal at home in the presence of an audience of 100,000! In this game, Muntyan opened the scoring with a penalty shot for a foul against Oleg Blokhin. The keeper of “miners” Yan Gomolya guessed the direction of the shot, but did not reach the ball. In general, the guests acted too harshly, and the Kyiv team had to make both substitutions permitted by the regulations at that time in the first half of the first half. In particular, Muntyan replaced Byshovets. In addition to the goal, Volodymyr Fedorovych also scored an assist in that game: a brilliant pass from the left wing to Anatoly Puzach, and the score became 2:0.

4. 23.10.1974. cup of cups “Eintracht” (Frankfurt am Main) – “Dynamo” (Kyiv) – 2:3. Muntyan, 87 (2:3)

Actually, the winning goal in Frankfurt, scored by Muntyan with a powerful shot from more than 20 meters (the home goalkeeper Peter Kunter, a man who in his youth retrained as a goalkeeper from a forward, and actually had an education as a dentist, was powerless against him), made a kind of song for that Euro season, because a well-known German club was overcome on the road, and the prospects of Euro spring, and with them dreams of something more (as later it turned out to be not unreasonable) were revealed in all their splendor.

5. 19.03.1975. cup of cups “Dynamo” (Kyiv) – “Bursaspor” – 2:0. Muntyan, 87 (2:0)

And in the match of the next stage of the Cup of Cups, which was triumphant for Dynamo, Muntyan (in fact, the nickname “Munya” was already introduced by the Kyiv stands at that time) distinguished himself with a shot from a long distance. A ricochet from the Turkish defender Hayretdin Endersert came in handy, giving the ball a strange trajectory, which the “green crocodiles” goalkeeper Rasim Kara was unable to react to. The path to the first European semifinal in the history of “Dynamo” is open!

6. 29.09.1976. Champions Cup. “Partizan” (Belgrade) – “Dynamo” (Kyiv) – 0:2. Muntyan, 10, from the penalty (0:1)

And in the capital of Yugoslavia at the time, Volodymyr Fedorovych scored from the “point” (he hit the bottom right corner of the goal) in the very first match (the goalkeeper of the home team played sloppy in his penalty area against Petro Slobodian, although he had no particular choice, otherwise the player from Dynamo would have realized the exit on his own), actually setting the tone for the entire 2-match confrontation. And Oleg Blokhin, the current winner of the Golden Ball, was the first to congratulate his team-mate with a scored goal.

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Volodymyr Muntyan grew up in my native Chokolivka almost in the same yard with Oleg Blokhin. The space between the former Iskrivska Street (now – Dzhokhara Dudayev) and Umanska Street simply boiled with the intensity of football battles of post-war children. Rumor has it that even the water in the outdoor swimming pool, which was located right here, was a geyser. And the residents of the nearby courtyards still support this mythology. Two dozen years later, when the sports grounds there (and they were in the middle of the blooming greenery of the neighborhood in Chimaletsk) were already tested by me and my peers, each of us chose the surname of one or another Dynamo ball magician for the game. Naturally, there were the most imaginary “Muntians” and “Blokhins” among us – countrymen, after all!

“Passing in football is everything!” – said Volodymyr Fedorovych. As if simple, but what an apt wording from a real master who did this “everything” like no one else. Bright memory of the great football player! Sincere thanks for the happiness of seeing your game, Volodymyr Fedorovych!

Oleksiy RYZHKOV