Today marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of Dynamo's home arena, the Olimpiyskiy National Sports Complex.
Photo: fcdynamo.comThe NSC Olimpiyskiy was founded on 12 August 1923, but its current name was acquired relatively recently.
The first name was the Red Stadium named after L. Trotsky. Here is the chronology: Червоний стадіон (1926−1935), Республіканський стадіон ім. С. Косіора (1936−1938) Республіканський стадіон (1938−1941), Республіканський стадіон ім. М. Хрущова (1941), Всеукраїнський стадіон (1942−1943), Республіканський стадіон ім. Khrushchev (1944-1962), the Central Stadium (1962-1979), the Republican Stadium (1980-1995), and the National Sports Complex Olimpiyskiy (since 1996 and up to now).
17 October 1961 was a historic day for the Kyiv club and the stadium. 67,000 spectators witnessed Dynamo's first gold medal in the USSR Championship. "It was the first time Dynamo broke the hegemony of Moscow clubs.
Even more great victories came to the stadium since the 70s, when the golden era of Dynamo began. At that time, the Kyiv team's home stadium had already reached 100,000 after the expansion of the stands in 1967, making the Kyiv arena the largest in Europe.
The first European trophy was played at the stadium in 1975. After defeating Bayern Munich in the UEFA Super Cup return leg on 6 October, Dynamo added this trophy to the Cup Winners' Cup.
The glorious victories of the Kyiv giants took place on the fields of the Olimpiyskiy Stadium after Ukraine gained independence. The NSC remembers the victories over Barcelona and Real Madrid, the Champions League semi-finals, and the decisive matches of the national team, for which it was the main arena. The main arena of the country - this is the informal name of the stadium to this day.
In 2012, the NSC Olimpiyskiy became the central stadium of the European Championship, which was held in Ukraine and Poland. The Kyiv stadium was the largest in terms of capacity among all the stadiums that hosted Euro 2012 (after the most recent large-scale reconstruction, the capacity is 70,050 seats). The stadium hosted Ukraine's first match of the tournament, in which the Blue and Yellows defeated Sweden thanks to a double by Andriy Shevchenko, and the final, in which Spain defeated Italy to become the best team on the continent.
On 26 May 2018, Olimpiyskiy once again became the centre of football in Europe and a place of pilgrimage for fans from all over the world when it hosted the final match of the most prestigious club tournament, the UEFA Champions League. The football festival in Kyiv ended with Real Madrid's victory over Liverpool.
Then a full-scale war broke out... However, even after 24.02.2022, under martial law in Ukraine, the NSC Olimpiyskiy hosted football matches of the Ukrainian championship. Congratulating our stadium on its 100th anniversary, we wish our country a speedy victory over the enemy and believe that very soon the stadium stands will be filled with spectators again, and Dynamo will once again host the grandees of European football at the NSC.
