Soccer match where losing means execution — would you let the Nazis win?
The film is based on the real fact — football «The Death Match» between the German team and a team of Soviet prisoners of war, former "Dinamo". It happened in Kiev on June 22, 1942. Anticipating the possibility of losing, the Germans made a condition — defeat or death. If the Germans won, the Soviet footballers were promised freedom...
Acting
Volov's Sokolovsky carries the weight of impossible choices.
Direction
Karelov turns a football pitch into a courtroom of conscience.
Director
Yevgeni Karelov
Yuri Volkov
Sokolovsky
Vladimir Kashpur
Kirill Zaitsev
Leonid Kuravlyov
Lyonya Fokin
Yuriy Nazarov
Misha Skachko
Vyacheslav Nevinnyy
Savchuk
Gleb Strizhenov
Yevgeni Ryazantsev
Gennadiy Yukhtin
Dugin
Aleksey Eybozhenko
Lemeshko
Aleksandr Metyolkin
Pavlik
Valentīns Skulme
Johan Dietrich
Ervin Knausmyuller
major Heinz
Valentina Markova
Sasha
Valentina Sharykina
Vera
Lidiya Dranovskaya
Ryazantseva
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The real Death Match's details remain disputed — some historians argue the 'win and die' narrative was postwar mythmaking.
Soviet cinema loved this story: multiple films, a monument, even a stamp — propaganda that outlived the USSR itself.
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